
iiliiiiii 




Qass 
Book. 



Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea; 

FOUR YEARS WITH THE ARMY 
OF THE POTOMAC, 



—OR,- 



FOOTPRINTS IN MANY LANDS. 



BEING THE LIFE, SUFFERING, AND HAIR-BREADTH 
ESCAPES ON LAND AND SEA OF 

JAIVIES R. EATON, 

The Amtrican Soldier and Sailor. 



Served in the War for the Union in the 3d and 17th 
Maine Volunteer Infantry. 



•^•^^ 



WRITTEN BY, AND PUBLISHED FOR, THE AUTHOR. 
1894. 



COPYRIGHT 1894, 

BY 
JAMES R. EATON. 



lij Transfer 
1909 



PRESS OF 

TRANK H. SMITH, 

INDIANAPOLIS. 





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3a5. 1R. jeaton, 

Bmerican SolDler anO Sailor. 



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\nierh:an Soldier and Sailor. 






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DEDICATION. 

To THE Union Volunteers, 
who flew to the rescue of their imperiled country, because 
they so loved her that they would willingly have laid 
down their lives for her, by one who shared your 
hardships, and noio enjoys your victory, 
this little narrative is most respect- 
fully dedicated by the author. ^ 



PREFACE. 



It is related of the elder Yanderbilt, that on a 
certain occasion, while somewhat pressed for time, he 
hastily gave an order on his banker, using for this pur- 
pose a piece of common wrapping paper, such as is 
now used in meat markets and hardware stores. This 
insignificant piece of paper, the first cost of which 
could not have been more than the one hundredth part 
of a cent, purchased the controlling interest in a rail- 
road, and was worth to the parties to whom it was 
given, a million and a half of dollars. In quoting the 
above anecdote, I wish to impress on the minds of my 
readers that the most handsome paper and the most 
handsome arranged book is not always the most interest- 
ing, nor most profitable to the reader. In introducing 
this book to the reader, I wish to say that I hope it will 
interest and amuse you, and after careful perusal, that 
you may say, ^' truth is stranger than fiction," then I 
shall be satisfied. 

The Author. 



Si)lf^ei7 Ve^f^ or? the iD^fl^ iBlh^ S^^, 

FOUR YEARS WITH THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 




CHAPTER I. 

T is indeed a difficult task for a modest man 
to write his own biography, for he has his 
life to live over again as it were, and to 
bring to mind many things he wished to 
have forgotten, and to relate many things, 
although very important to himself, would be but very 
little interest to others. But then a knowledge of the 
errors of our fellowmen enables us to avoid the committal 
of similar ones; while an acquaintance with their virtues 
stimulates us to a noble endeavor. Hence it has been 
truly said, that " eyery man's life is instructive." Per- 
haps there never lived a man or woman, whatever their 
station in life, whose biography might not be rendered 
highly productive of good to somebody. But there are 
some, the importance of whose relations to society, and 
the stirring events of whose lives place them more promi- 
nently before us than others. Every act in the great 
drama of life requires its leading characters, and every 
age produces them. It is of these we usually write, not 
because such persons are really more deserving of atten- 
tion than those who stand in the social scale much below 



8 Sixteen Years on the Bark Blue Sea, 

them — for just as the smallest wheel in the machine is 
as essential as the largest, so the most apparently insig- 
nificant member of society is as necessary to the social 
fabric as the most distinguished — but for the reason that 
their lives and characters are more attractive and 
instructive to the masses than those of ordinary men. 

Now I have started out to write a true history of 
my life, and 1 purpose to give the bad as well as the 
good ; or in other words, to give you the potatoes as 
they grew, as it were; the little ones and the big ones, 
the rotten ones and the worm-eaten ones, and then leave 
it to the reader, whether my good deeds will outbalance 
my bad ones. I don't claim I have done anything to 
bring me into prominence before the world, but that I 
have had as many adventures and hairbreadth escapes 
on land and sea, as any other man on God's green earth, 
and as many '' ups and downs '^ in life. And this is 
what I purpose telling you about in this little book. 
Having spent sixteen years as a common sailor, and 
visited almost every land in the civilized world, and 
spent four years more with the army of the U. S. in 
defense of my country, I think I can make it interesting 
to the most of vou. 



Four Years loith the Army of the Potomac. 



CHAPTER II. 

I, James Randell Eaton, came of an old English 
family, which traced its descent back to King William 
the Conqueror, in the days of Herod Broadicca, down 
through the Brilliant Circle of the Knights of the 
Round Table, to Francis Eaton, who came to this 
country from England in the Mayflower, in 1620. 

I was the fourth son of Clemens Eaton and his wife, 
Nancy, and was born in the town of Waterville, county 
of Kennebec, State of Maine, on the 8th day of August, 
1841. My father being a poor man, and quite old when 
I was born — he being born in 1780, and I not until 
1841^1 was put to work as soon as I was large enough 
to do anything. Went to school during the winter and 
worked at whatever my parents found for me to do. 
My father had been a sea-faring man, and had spent 
most of his life on the dark blue sea. He also served 
in the war of 1812, and was wounded during the battle 
at Plattsburg, for which he drew a pension of ninety-six 
dollars a year. As you may suppose, he had many 
stories to tell about his life on the sea, and what he had 
seen in other countries. His stories of adventure set 
me wild to go to sea and roam about and see some of 
the world. So when I was about fifteen years old I 
broached the subject to my mother, but she would 
not for a moment listen to my going, but told 



10 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

me of the dangers and hardships that fell to the 
lot of men who follow the life of a sailor for a 
living. But that did not lessen my desire to go to 
sea. Many has been the time since, when I was tossed 
about on the angry waves of a blustering sea, when 
nature's elements were at war with each other in a 
tempestuous storm, how I wished I had taken mother's 
advice. When I found I could not get the consent 
of my parents to go and ship, I let the matter drop. 
But at the same time I was secretly laying my 
plans for an elopement. After my plans had matured, 
and all things being ready, one of the neighbor's boys 
and I started for Boston, Mass., intending to ship and 
go a voyage to sea. We reached Boston on the after- 
noon of May 22, 1856, found a cheap boarding place, 
and went out to see the city. On the following day 
we went to the wharf and tried to get a chance to ship. 
But, we being so young, our appearance as young 
sailors was against us. After spending three days in 
fruitless search for a ship that would take us, we gave 
up the search, and took the train for Kew Bedford, 
Mass., where we arrived May 26, 1856. 

Upon arriving at New Bedford, we at once com- 
menced to look around to find an opportunity to ship. 
To our joy, we learned that there was a " whaler " 
fitting for sea, and was in want of hands. We made 
our way to the wharf where the ship lay, and went on 
board. We wasted no time in finding the captain, who 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 11 

talked to us very kindly, and told us of the hardships 
and dangers that we would encounter, hut nothing 
daunted us. We told him we had no homes, and wanted 
to go to sea. So after some further talk he agreed to 
take us at twenty-two dollars per month. We, on our 
part, was to stay until the voyage was made, and the 
ship returned to the wharf in the city from which we 
sailed. After we signed the ship's papers, binding our- 
selves to the contract, and the captain gave us articles 
of agreement, the mate was called and told to take us 
to a sailor's furnishing store, and get our outfit for sea- 
men. The outfit consisted of the following : Two pairs 
heavy woolen shirts, four pairs socks, two pairs heavy 
wool pants, two pairs gum boots, mittens, drawers, under- 
shirts, oil suit, monkey jacket and necessary bedding, a 
tin plate, tin cup, knife and fork, spoons, etc., a jack knife 
and a few other articles such as we would need on ship- 
board. The whole outfit costing $21.80, clothing being 
a great deal cheaper in those days than at the present 

time. 

*' Time and tide wait for no man," and in a few 
days we were ready to sail for our whaling grounds. I 
will not worry the patience of the reader with a detailed 
account of the voyage to the place where we expected to 
fill our ship with oil, but will proceed to tell you about 
whales, and the way we catch them. 

The popular name of the larger, Catacaean, partic- 
ularly of all those belonging to the families of Balanide. 



1^ Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

The latter is the only one that I will now describe. In 
this family the head is of enormous size, as in the 
Catodouctide, but is entirely destitute of teeth, instead 
of which the palate is furnished with an apparatus of 
baleen or whalebone, for the purpose of straining out 
of the water the small fishes which form the food of 
these whales. Rudiments of teeth, however, and dental 
pulps appear in the jaws of the whale; sixty or seventy 
on each side. They are reefs or beds in the system of 
the mouth, and plates of whalebone are not produced 
from them, but from integuments. The whalebone is 
elastic, and its heaviness is well known, the plates of it 
in the mouth of a whale are very numerous, several 
hundred being on each side of the mouth, and they are 
very closely placed together, so that the mouth is filled 
with them ; the whole quantity in the mouth of a large 
whale sometimes amounting to nearly two tons in weight. 
They are suspended from the roof of the mouth, none 
are produced in the lower jaw; they extend on each side 
of the midddle line of the plate, like the barbs of a 
feather, those in the middle of the mouth are longer. 
The last of each plate is imbedded in a substance of the 
membrane that covers the plate, while its edge forms a 
loose fringe composed of fibers or pliable bristles. The 
huge mouth being opened, water is taken in and the 
small animals which entered with it are retained for 
food, while the water is allowed to escape by the sides 
of the mouth. The tongue is a soft thick mass not 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. IS 

extending beyond the back of the mouth. The gullet 
of the whale is very narrow, it is said to be not more 
than nine and one-half inches in diameter even in a 
large whale, so that only very small animals can pass 
through it. The head of a whale occupies from a third 
to a fourth of its entire length ; the skull is unsymmet- 
rical, the right side being larger than the left. 

The flesh is red, firm and coarse. The skin is naked 
with the exception of a few bristles about the jaw, and 
its surface is moistened by an oily fluid ; the lower sur- 
face, the true skin, extends into a thick layer of blubber 
two feet in thickness, the whole mass, in a large whale 
often weighing more than thirty tons, and serves the 
purpose of keeping the animal warm, as well as of 
making the specific gravity of the whole body much 
lighter than it otherwise would be ; and of resisting the 
pressure of the water in the great depth to which it 
often descends. 

It has been attempted to tell the age of of a whale 
by the traverse lines on the plates of baleen, and in this 
way it has been computed that they attain to the age of 
eight or nine hundred years, each traverse line being 
assumed to indicate an annual growth ; but it is evident 
that there are no good grounds for the assumption on 
which such calculation is based. 

The most important species, and indeed the most 
valuable of all the species, is that known as the Wright 
or Greenland whale. It inhabits the seas of the northern 



H Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

part of the world and abounds chiefly in the arctic 
regions. It attains to the enormous length of sixty to 
seventy feet, the body is thickest a little behind the 
flippers or pectorial fins, tapering conically toward the 
tail and slightly toward the head. The tail is five or 
six feet long, and from twenty to twenty-five feet broad, 
formed of two dividing laps, broadest almost where 
they are united, with but a slight indentation. 

The pectoral fins are eight or nine feet long, and 
four or ^ve feet broad. The mouth is fifteen or sixteen 
feet long. The eyes, which are situated on the sides of 
the head about a foot above and rather behind the 
angles of the mouth, are not larger than those of an 
ox; but the sense of sight seems to be very acute, 
at least in the water; the iris of the eye is white. The 
blow-holes are situated on the most elevated part of 
the head; they are from eight to twelve inches long, 
of but comparatively small breadth ; the upper parts are 
velvety black, the lower parts are white. The upper 
parts in an old whale sometimes become paler, the 
black being mixed with white and gray. The period 
of gastation is uncertain. But one young is produced 
at birth, and is from ten to fifteen feet in length. 
When born, the mother displays great affection for her 
offspring. 

Whalers sometimes take undue advantage in har- 
pooning the infant whale, (itself of very little value,) 
in order to secure the mother. Suckling the young is 



Four Years loith the Aamy of the Potomac. 15 

performed at the surface of the water. The mother 
rolls from side to side that she and the young may 
be able to breathe in turns. 

The usual rate of progress in swimming, is about 
four miles per hour. Whales often swim not far 
beneath the surface of the water with the mouth wide 
open to take in water, from which to sift food. The 
whale is capable, however, of swimming with much 
greater rapidity. When harpooned it often descends to a 
great depth in a few seconds. Its tail is extremely power- 
ful and a single blow from it is sufficient to destroy a large 
boat or toss it and its crew into the air; so that the 
whale fishery is attended with no little danger. Whales 
usually come to the surface to breathe at intervals 
of ten or fifteen minutes; but they are capable of 
remaining under water for a half hour or more. When 
they come to the surface to breathe, they generally 
remain two or three minutes, during which time they 
blow eight or nine times, and then descend. The noise 
they make in blowing is very loud, and the spout of 
spray ejected ascends several yards into the air, appear- 
ing at a distance like puffs of smoke. They often assume, 
as if in sport, vertical positions with the head down- 
ward and flap the surface of the water with the tail, 
making a sound which can be heard two or three miles. 
The Greenland whale is not properly gregarious, being 
generally found in pairs or alone, except when numbers 
are attracted to particularly good feeding grounds, as is 



16 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

sometimes the case in the bays and inlets of the northern 
coast. 

Having given you a fair description of the whale 
and his customs, T will now try and tell you how we 
catch them and dispose of them. 

Important as the whale is to civilized man, both for 
the oil and the whalebone which it yields, it is still more 
important to the rude natives of the arctic regions ; as 
the Esquimaux and Greenlanders, who use its oil for 
food as well as for burning, and to whom its flesh also 
is a chief article of food, while its bones and baleen are 
used for making tents, sledges, boats, harpoons and 
spears. The sinews supply a substitute for twine or 
thread, and the membranes are used instead of glass for 
windows. There is not much difference in the way in 
which whales are captured by the rude tribes and the 
most civilized and expert whalers. The whale fishers 
approach the whale in boats, and attack it by harpooning 
it with a harpoon, to which is attached lines ; following 
up the attack until its strength is exhausted. Taking 
advantage of the opportunity when it comes to the sur- 
face to breathe, they finally kill it with lances, which 
are thrust into its most vital parts. The harpoon is an 
iron spear about ^yq feet long, with a flattened point, 
having sharp edges and large flattened barbs; This is 
the way the harpooner does his work ; When the boat 
is near enough to the whale, the man whose duty it is to 
cast the harpoon, darts or plunges the weapon with all 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 17 

his might into the animal's side. In its fleeing from the 
attack, the line is rapidly drawn out of the boat until 
the creature is tired out and raises to the surface for air. 
The boat follows, keeping as much of the line as 
possible. When exhausted by pain and loss of blood, 
the animal succumbs. It will be seen, much depends 
upon the sharpness of the blade-like edges of the barbs 
and their power to hold. The lance used for killing 
the whale generally has a blade five or six feet long, 
and two and a half or three inches wide, with sharp 
cutting edges, and a long wooden handle. 

The ship that I was in was a screw steamer of six 
hundred tons burden. To protect her from injury by 
ice, it was fortified with an 'additional series of plank, 
iron plates and a false or ice stem, on the sides of which 
were ice knees. The stern was also protected by ice 
plates of half-inch iron. She carried seven boats, care- 
fully built, from twenty-three to twenty-eight feet in 
length, each capable of carrying six or seven men, with 
seven or eight cwt. of whale, lines, etc. Our crew con- 
sisted of forty-five men, whom, from the master to the 
boys, received a gratuity for each whale caught, in 
addition to his fixed wages. 

Each boat was provided with two harpoons and six 
or eight lances. When we arrived in the vicinity of the 
whaling ground, a lookout was stationed at the mast 
head. As soon as a whale is discovered the boats are 
lowered and manned, and all exert their utmost strength 



18 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

to reach Mr. Whale first. The harpooner is ready. As 
soon as he is sufficiently near the whale to hurl his har- 
poon, he does so with all his force. The crew instantly 
back the boat, and the whale generally plunges in terror 
to a great depth, sometimes carrying out more than 
two hundred fathoms of line. It remains below for 
twenty minutes or more. When it rises, the boats 
hasten to the attack again, and a second harpoon is 
thrown. It sometimes happens that instead of descend- 
ing at once, it strikes at its enemies with deadly 
vengeance. Great caution is then required. It cannot 
now remain long below the surface. When it rises, 
great spouting through its blow-holes occurs. When it 
is lanced it sometimes dies immediately; at other times 
a terrific struggle for life occurs, the water is lashed 
into foam and dyed red with the life-flowing blood. It 
sometimes happens that instead of dying at the surface 
of the water, the whale descends and does not rise 
again. He is then lost to the whaler. When one is 
killed on the surface, he is towed by the boats to the 
ship and made fast to it by chains. The process of 
preparing him is then commenced. 

Some of the crew have their boots armed with 
spikes to prevent them from slipping. They then 
descend upon the carcass and cut into the blubber with 
a blubber spade, and remove broad strips or blankets of 
skin, twenty to thirty feet long, which is hoisted to the 
deck by means of hook and tackle. Great cubical 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 19 

pieces of blubber or fat, of a half ton or more in weight, 
are then cut out and hoisted on deck in the same way. 
This process is carried on, and the whale being turned 
over and over so that every part may be reached, when 
in three or four hours the whole mass of blubber is 
removed, probably amounting to thirty or forty tons. 
Meanwhile, others of the crew have descended into the 
mouth of the whale and removed the baleen. After all 
that is profitable has been taken, the remainder of the 
carcass is then flung adrift ; it sometimes sinks, but 
often floats, and aflbrds food for bear and fish. The 
blubber, after received on deck, is cut into smaller cubes 
and subjected to a process by which the cellular tissue 
is separated. This is called making out or trying out. 

The blubber is heated in a large pot and afterwards 
strained. The scraps from one pot serving as fuel for 
another. The ship is now made filthy with smoke and 
grease. After the blubber is rendered, it is stored in 
casks to be conveyed home and ready to be boiled for 
oil. A ton of blubber yields about two hundred gallons 
of oil. A single whale often yields blubber and whale- 
bone to the value of seven or eight thousand dollars. 

It is usual for whalers to resort to the arctic whale 
fishery in the spring, and return again in the autumn ; 
but the ship on which I was, adopted with great success 
the method of wintering in the arctic region. On or 
about the first of July, 1859, the captain called us 
together, and after giving a liberal drink of " grog,'' 



20 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea 



told us that we had done well, and that we had made 
money for the ship and for ourselves, and as soon as we 
caught one more whale we would start for home. He 
said the minute we got the blubber and baleen on deck, 
he would order the engineer to fire up if the wind blows 
high or low. You can bet we all kept a sharp lookout 
for a whale. On the morning of August 8th, it being 
my eighteenth birthday, we saw a monster whale about 
two miles to leeward, and then if men ever worked, it 
was us. We manned the boats and started after him. 
We had good luck in killing the whale, and at four 
o'clock p. M., we had him alongside of our steamer, and 
we, (the crew) were nearly exhausted. So after getting 
our grog and dinner— for we had nothing to eat through 
the day — we set a watch on the carcass, and "turned in" 
to gather strength for the morrow. Bright and early 
next morning the crew was astir and commenced opera- 
tions on the carcass of the whale. By four o'clock that 
afternoon the last piece was hoisted on deck. In the 
meantime the engineer had been getting ready to steam 
up. We being all very tired, voted to the man not to 
start home till next day. So after a good " stiff grog" 
and a hearty supper, the first watch was set and the rest 
of the crew " turned in " to rest. '^ Home, sweet home, 
be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." 

At daylight we started picking our way through 
the floating cakes of ice and icebergs, until we reached 
clear water. Then we hoisted sail and used steam and 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac, '21 

made the best time we could for New Bedford, which 
we reached on the 3d day of October, 1859, having 
been fifty-four days in getting there, with a fair wind 
and a good head of steam. " Sweet home/' 

After waiting in New Bedford ten days, and having 
our cargo unloaded and the products counted up, which 
amounted to |232,181.50, we were paid off, my three 
years' wages and share of the catch amounted to $851.80. 
After deducting |144.25, the amount that I had drawn 
for my outfit, extra clothing, tobacco, etc., I had left 
$707.55 ; a goodly sum for a lad to have in those days 
before he was nineteen years of age. In fact it would 
be in this day and age, especially if gotten by his own 
exertion. I took the train, or rather the train took me, 
to my own native village, which I reached in due time. 
If 1 have space and time I will tell you how we spent 
our winters in the arctic regions. 



CHAPTER III. 

HOME AGAIN. 

After reaching Boston, I stopped off for a few days 
to see the sights, and then started for Waterville, Me., 
at which place I arrived in due time. My parents had 
not heard from me since I left home, more than three 
years before, and did not know what had become of me ; 



2^ Sixteen Year's on the Bark Blue Sea, 

they had long since given me up as dead. It was a sad 
home for me, for I found upon my arrival that my father 
had been dead more than two years, and my mother was 
about to marry again. The children had left home to 
do for themselves. Our home was broken up and others 
were occupying our old house. I learned where my 
married sister lived and went to see her. After a happy 
greeting, I was bid welcome by her and her husband. 
After resting a few days, and pondering over my situa- 
tion and condition, I began to feel the need of an 
education, knowing full well that I could not rise higher 
than a common sailor, nor be a master or mate, not even 
a yeoman or ship-writer, without book learning. So I 
made up my mind to use what money I had to educate 
myself as far as I could ; that I would study the common 
branches of English l^avigation, and fit myself for 
spending the balance of my days on the dark blue sea. 
There was at the time of which I write, in Water- 
ville, a school known as Prof. Foster's Academy, where 
young men could be educated and trained for business 
life, but they had to be somewhat advanced before they 
could be admitted to the school. School was to com- 
mence on the first day of l^ovember, and I was such a 
poor scholar, that I was afraid I could not be admitted. 
However, I called on the professor and told him what 
I wanted. He examined me and soon found that I was 
not up to the standard. But for old acquaintance sake 
of my father, he said he would take me in and do the 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 2S 

best for me that he could. So I bought what books 
were necessary, aud when school commenced I started 
in with the determination to learn all I could during 
the winter term. 

The winter soon passed away and April came, and 
with it the startling cry of " War ! war ! " While stand- 
ing on the corner of the street one evening after school, 
talking with some of my school-mates, I heard the 
newsboys cry out that Ft. Sumpter had been fired on, and 
that President Lincoln had called for seventy-five 
thousand troops. I told my chums that I was going to 
Augusta the next day and try and get in the Navy. By 
seven o'clock that evening one of my school-mates and 
myself were ready to start for Augusta on the following 
morning. But we became impatient, and boarded a 
freight train that night and started for Augusta, that we 
might be there early the next day. We arrived at Au- 
gusta about 9:30 p. m. ; we found a boarding and lodg- 
ing house and stopped over night. The next morning 
we went to the State-house to see the governor and ofier 
him our services. We found him in his ofiice, and soon 
made our business known. He thanked us for our 
promptness in offering ourselves to the State, and said 
he would expect us as Volunteer State Militiamen, sub- 
ject to the call of the President for troops, from the 
State of Maine. 

As soon as the adjutant-general arrived our names 
were enrolled, and Governor Washburn told us to go 



2Jf. Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

home and await his orders, and as soon as he commenced 
to recruit from the State, he would consign us to some 
regiment. There w^as working at the boarding house 
at which I boarded, one of my old school-mates and 
lady friends, which I had not seen for years. We soon 
renewed the old acquaintance, and after a while it 
ripened into love. As neither of us had a home of our 
own, we agreed that as soon as I could make us a home, 
we would " pool issue," or, in other words, get married. 

I told her what I had done while in Augusta, and 
that I would probably be called on in a week or two. 
I would therefore give her the choice of marrying me 
before I went, or wait until I came back; or if she 
wished, would release her from our engagement entirely. 
She chose to marry ; for the reason she said, if I 'went 
to war, and anything should happen me, perhaps she 
could come and nurse me back to health, which she 
might not have had the privilege of doing, had she been 
but a " sweetheart." So, on the 27th day of May, 
1861, we were united in the bonds of holy wedlock. 

In the meantime, recruiting offices had been 
opened in all the large towns and cities in the State 
One in Portland for the 1st regiment; one in Bangor 
for the 2d regiment; one in Waterville for the 3d regi- 
ment, and one in Rockland for the 4th regiment. We 
militiamen received orders from the governor to report 
to the recruiting officer for the 3d Maine, and he would 
consign us to a company. We did so, and part of us 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 25 

were placed in Co. H, and part in Co. G. The 3d regi- 
ment was recruited mostly from Kennebec lumbermen. 
The men were of a large, powerful type, the average 
weight in one company being 170 pounds. We were 
mustered into the U. S. service on the 4th day . ^ June, 
and arrived in Washington on the 7th of June, 1861. 
The 3d Maine first fought at Bull Run, where it had 
eight killed and several wounded. 

Now, I am not going to lay myself open to criticism 
by giving a history of the war, but am only going to 
tell what I saw, and part of what my regiment done in 
putting down the rebellion. 

The State enrollment of the 3d Maine was 1586; 
of which was killed and wounded, 489; including those 
that died in rebel prisons, which was 33. Our first 
colonel was 0. O. Howard; our second was Henry G. 
Staples; our third, Moses B. V. Lakeman. We were 
engaged in the following battles : First Battle of Bull 
Run ; Battle of the Wilderness ; Fair Oaks ; Melvin 
Hill; Manasses; Chantilly; Fredericksburg; Chancel- 
lorsville; Gettysburg; Mine Run; Spottsylvania; North 
Anna; Pottawotamie. Also present at Bailey^s Cross 
Roads; Yorktown ; Williamsburg; White Oak Swamp; 
Glendale; Wapping Heights; Kelley's Ford, and Cold 
Harbor. 

Lieut. Col. Edwin Burt was killed at the Battle of 
the Wilderness, and Major Morgan at North Anna. 
While in line at Cold Harbor the regiment was ordered 
home, and the recruits placed in the 17th Maine. 



^6 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

I followed the fortunes of my regiment, it its 
marches, its battles, and in camp ; on the picket line, 
in the hot July sun, and on the march in sleet, snow or 
rain ; in the bitter, cold December weather. I did not 
get sick or wounded until we arrived at Fredericksburg, 
on the 12th of December, 1862, when I was hit by a 
spent ball, in my left shoulder, causing a painful 
although not dangerous, wound; but by laying on the 
ground in the rain, I contracted a very severe cold, 
which staid with me all the rest of the winter. But as 
the weather got warmer in the spring, I got better and 
went with the regiment once more across the Rappa- 
hannock, and took part in the battle of Chancellorsville, 
where our regiment lost six in killed and wounded. I 
got out without a scratch, and was in all the battles in 
which our regiment was engaged, until we got to the 
Battle of the Wilderness, when I received a buckshot 
wound in the hand. After the battle of Gettysburg, 
we got after Robert Lee, to drive him back to Virginia. 
It was then that we had a hand-to-hand fight with 
Mosby's guerrillas. I was struck on the top of the head 
with a sabre, which cut my head open five and one-half 
inches, turning my scalp down on my neck and fractur- 
ing my skull in two places. 

In a short time I was well again and joined my 
regiment; but well do I remember the 3d day of June, 
1864. During that fearful charge at Cold Harbor, I was 
struck by a minnie ball, which struck back of my left 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. ^7 

ear, passing through my head and coming out back of 
my right ear. After laying on the field of battle several 
hours, a detail was made to bury the dead and pick up 
the wounded. They found me and took me to the rear. 
The nature of my wounds being such that they did not 
think they could do me much good, they therefore let 
me lay on the grass until seven o'clock next morning, 
when I was cared for and sent to the hospital. 

I lay at the hospital three months, hovering between 
life and death'. At last I began to get better ; slowly 
but surely; and in September they gave me a furlough 
home. By kind and careful nursing the sparks of 
health came back, and I again reported to the hospital 
surgeon, and remained there until November 26th, when 
I again was sent to the regiment. In the meantime I 
had been transferred to the 17th Maine. Having 
re-enlisted on the 23d day of February, 1864, I was 
placed there to serve out the balance of my time. The 
old 3d had been sent home the next day after I was 
wounded. 

I found the 17th regiment laying in the trenches in 
front of Petersburg, and remained with it through the 
winter. Was with it during several fights around the 
city, and at Hatch's Run and Weldon R. R. In the 
spring we started Lee and his army toward Appomattox, 
at which place he surrendered on the 9th of April, 1865. 
So closed the four years of the bloodiest war the world 
ever saw. We lay in camp until June 4th, when the 



28 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

regiment was mustered out, and, by request of Governor 
Coney, I was also discharged. 

Once more we breathe the free air of home ; free 
from war and strife. But I was still suffering from my 
wounds ; I had but little money, and stern old poverty 
was staring me in the face. I knew I must look around 
and find something to do, whereby I could earn a liv- 
ing. I got a job in Korth Yassalboro in a woolen 
factory, scouring wool; but the confinement did not 
agree with me. I staid there until spring, however. In 
the meantime my wife had given birth to our first child, 
a good, healthy boy. I threw up my job in the factory, 
and after resting awhile and looking about me for some- 
thing else to do, I concluded to move my household to 
Sidney, where my wife was nearer her people. 

After seeing my family comfortably situated, I went 
to Boston, Mass., and shipped on a three-mast schooner, 
plying between Boston, Mass., and Bangor, Me. It 
was engaged in the lumber trade. We would carry 
merchandise to Bangor and bring back lumber to 
Boston. I remained with the schooner that summer, 
nothing happening worth mentioning, our return trip 
was made the last week in October. The schooner 
needed some repairs, and the captain, who was part 
owner, concluded to lay up for the winter, knowing 
that Penobscot Bay would be full of ice by the time we 
got our cargo disposed of, so he paid off' his hands and 
let them go. I went to my home in Maine to see my 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac, ^9 

family. In a few days I received a letter from a friend 
of mine in l!Tew York, by the name of Simeon Haden. 
He told me there was a bark being loaded for the Ber- 
muda Islands, and that he had spoken for a place for 
me, and if I wanted it, to come on at once, he also said 
if I worked my cards right I might get the berth of a 
second mate. Accordingly I bid my family and friends 
good-by, and started for New York. I soon found the 
bark and my old friend Haden, who introduced me to 
the captain. We soon struck a bargain ; I was to ship 
as second mate and receive $30 per month. 

In about ten days after arriving in New York, the 
ship was ready to start sail for the Bermudas. We left 
the harbor on the 15th of November, with a complete 
cargo of general merchandise. On our way out, we 
encountered a dreadful storm of wind and rain, carry- 
ing away our main top mast and some of our sails, and 
somewhat crippled our ship. The storm lasted forty- 
eight hours. Notwithstanding all this we arrived at 
our destination in about four weeks, and commenced 
unloading our cargo, which had been consigned to a 
merchant on the islands. After repairing our ship, 
and it being the harvest time on these islands in Janu- 
ary and February, we commenced loading her with 
onions, potatoes, oranges, lemons, dates, figs and raisins, 
and a small lot of spices. All things being ready, 
on the 7th day of March we set sail for New York, 
having been gone nearly four months. On our return 



30 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

trip we had fair wind and fine weather and arrived in 
New York March 29th, having made our return trip in 
twenty-two days. After receiving my pay and engag- 
ing with another ship, with the privilege of a two 
weeks' leave of absence, I took a run down home to see 
my family. I found my family all " 0. K.," and after 
remaining with them and friends for ten days, and 
making provision for the care of my wife and child, I 
again started for New York. I found the three-mast 
schooner ready, loaded with ice for New Orleans, where 
she was going to take a cargo of cotton for Liverpool, 
England, and there load with Liverpool salt for New 
York. We arrived at New Orleans all right and dis- 
charged our ice, and began loading cotton for Liverpool, 
and were ready to start in about twenty-five days from 
the time we left New York. 

We met with a great deal of bad weather in cross- 
ing the Atlantic. When about half way across, the 
kilson was sprung and caused our ship to leak so badly 
that we had to pump water all the rest of the way to 
Liverpool. After arriving, the captain cabled to the 
owners in New York to know what was to be done, as 
the schooner leaked so badly that it was not safe to 
start back, even with a light load. He soon got word 
to discharge her cargo and go into the dry docks for 
repairs. This the captain did, and after ascertaining 
how long it would take for repairs, he told the crew that 
they could have their liberty for about five weeks. We 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 31 

could go where we pleased but must return within that 
time to start back home. 

As there are many who will read this book that 
never saw a dry dock, nor don't know how they take a 
ship up for repairs, I will give a brief description : Dry 
docks are used for the purpose of laying dry for exami- 
nation and repairs. They may have their entrance 
either from a wet, dry, or from a tidal harbor. The 
former is by far the better arrangement, as it admits 
vessels being docked or taken out at any time of tide. 
It also keeps a more equal pressure on the gates, thereby 
being less liable to leak. They are required to be built 
of good, water-tight masonry. The entrance generally 
has a pair of folding gates, pointing outward, to exclude 
the water. But sometimes it is closed by means of a 
caisson, viz : A vessel shaped something like the hull 
of a small vessel, and having a keel and two sterns, 
which fit into a groove in the masonry. The caisson is 
sunk into the groove by admitting water into its inter- 
ior; and is floated out again by pumping the water 
out. When the vessels are very large the bottom of 
the dock may be placed above low water, so that it may 
be run dry without pumping; but generally the bottom 
of the dry dock for the reception of any but very small 
vessels, is below that level, in which case a steam engine 
and pump, with a wall and water channel leading off, 
are required to empty the dock. The floor is nearly 
level, and the keel of the vessel to be docked rests on 



32 Sixteen Years on the Bark Blue Sea, 

wooden blocks, fastened down to prevent them from 
floating, and of such height as to admit of the ship- 
wright getting under the vessel. Side shaers are put in 
to keep the vessel in an upright position ; and blocks 
are fitted in under the bulger as soon as possible after 
the water is let out of the dock. The sides generally 
consist of stone steps, called altars, for the purpose of 
fixing the lower ends of the shaers, and also for conven- 
ience of supporting the scaffolds of the workmen. 

Dry docks are frequently made long enough to hold 
three or four vessels of considerable size, in which case 
they are placed obliquely across the dock, so as to give 
more available length. The above kind of a dock was 
like the one in which our vessel was docked. 

After our ship was docked, I stayed in Liverpool a 
few days to take in the sights, and then took a run 
down to London. Remained there about ten days and 
visited Westminster Abbey and other places of public 
note. Went from there to Lancaster, about 250 miles 
northwest of London. It is a municipal and parlia- 
mentary borough and seaport of England, and capital 
of Lancashire. It is situated on the left bank of the 
Lune. Near the mouth of that river.- is the Ancient 
Castle, which overlooks the town. It is now used as a 
county jail and court-house. The houses are built of 
freestone quarried in the vicinity; though the streets 
are narrow, the town is neat and well built. The Lune 
is here crossed by a bridge of ^ve arches and by an 



Four Years loith the Army of the Potomac, 33 

aqueduct, carrying the Lancaster Canal across the river. 
The town contains numerous scientific, benevolent and 
educational institutions. There is some trade in coal 
and limestone. The chief manufactures are furniture, 
cotton and silk fabrics, tableware, leather and cast iron 
works. The year I was there, I was told that 533 ves- 
sels of 113,401 tons entered and cleared the port. 

Lancaster formerly sent two members to Parlia- 
ment, but was disfranchised in 1867, for corrupt prac- 
tice at elections. 

They have many blacksmith shops where they 
make boat nails or clinch nails. A great many women 
work at the forge. The laboring class are extremely 
poor. The women only get about five shillings a week. 
Many of them are nursing mothers and have their 
child in a box, nailed up by the side of the shop window. 
I was in one of these shops one day while they were 
eating their dinner. All they had was some very black 
bread and a small piece of cheese, and a small pot of 
what they call 'alf and 'alf, (half and half,) costing two 
pence. After spending a few days in the city, I went 
to Manchester, and saw the large cotton factories, and 
saw them print some of their fancy calico prints; saw 
them make rope, both hemp and wire ; saw their shot 
tower and many other places of interest, of which I 
have not space to tell. I then went to Shearfield, Wool- 
wich, and to Windsor, and saw the residence of the 
Queen; saw her taking a walk with her daughter, 



Slf, Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea^ 

attended by a body guard and boatman. I also visited 
Wooster and many other places. After staying away 
about Rve weeks I returned and found that the schooner 
was nearly repaired. And soon she was taken out of 
the dock and loaded with salt consigned to ^N'ew York. 

After we got our cargo on board we hoisted sail 
and started for what we called " God's country '^ viz: 
U. S. A. We sailed from Liverpool to New York in 
twenty-two days, a dista'nce of 8,200 miles ; however, 
we had fair wind and good weather. 

I received my pay and once more started for home. 
I remained thereabout two months, when I learned 
that a new ship was being fitted out for China and then 
"laying in" at Portsmouth, IST. H. I wasted no time in 
getting there and found no trouble in securing a berth, 
as I was then considered an able seamen, and they can 
get a job at anything and at any time, and command 
good wages. In a few days we went to New York and 
took on our supplies and cargo, consisting of a general 
stock of merchandise, and then started for the Flowery 
Kingdom. Of course I cannot describe our voyage 
very minutely for want of time and space, but will try 
to tell you of China and her people, and what I saw 
while there. In going from New York to China we 
crossed the equator twice. We went by the little 
Oceanic islands into the China Sea, and then to Hong- 
kong, where we landed ; or rather, entered her harbor, 
for we were not allowed to land, but had to load and 



Four Years loith the Army of the Potomac. 35 

unload with junkboats or flatboats, for her harbors and 
landing places are guarded with zealous care, — as I will 
describe later on. 

The time of which I am writing is April, 1869. 
On the nineteenth of January, 1869, my wife gave birth 
to another son ; I then had them moved to York Cor- 
ner, Maine, so she would be with friends while I was 
at sea. 

The reader is aware that Hongkong is an island 
belonging to the British. This was not our destination, 
we only put in here for harbor to get out of a storm 
which was brewing. Before we left ISTew York, the 
yeoman had taken sick with a fever and was not able 
to sail with the ship, so I was appointed yeoman. As 
this little book will be read by many landsmen, I will 
tell you the duty of a yeoman on board a ship. He is 
to keep an account of all supplies given to the steward, 
keep the ship's rate, the latitude and longitude of our 
voyage, keep nn account of everything given the crew, 
such as tobacco, etc., deal out the grog to the men, and 
make himself useful in general. I boarded with the 
officers quite often, thus faring a little better than I 
would have fared had I been as one of the sailors. 
After the storm had abated, we hoisted sail and anchor, 
and started for Pekin, in the Flowery Kingdom. When 
we entered the port, all of China was making prepara- 
tions to celebrate the New Year, which is the China- 
man's Christmas, Thanksgiving and Fourth of July, 
all in one. 



36 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

A happy !N"ew Year it is with these Chinamen. 
While we are celebrating it at home, let us see how our 
yellow faced cousins, the children of our great-grand- 
uncle Shem, are getting ready for it on the other side 
of the globe. Bore a hole 8,000 miles long through 
your front yard, and you will come out among them. 
Shoot your eyes through it if you can, and see me in 
one of the great cities of China. Everything is hustle 
and bustle ; see and hear the rush and push of the mil- 
lions of pig-tailed, almond-eyed mortals, as they fill the 
air with the din and jabber, jabber, jabber of tens of 
thousands of Chinese tongues. Make your long hole 
a telephone by which you can hear the sounds of the 
other side of the world. Let me sit at the other end of 
the telephone in Chinatown, and tell you what the 
people are doing. It takes time to analyze the sounds, 
and to appreciate the sights, but I will try. As I said 
before, the Chinese are getting ready for the New Year. 

The first day of the first moon is the great day of 
the year to these 300,000,000 of people. The moon 
varies in its rising, so their day is from two to four 
weeks later than our New Year. So while we are eat- 
ing our New Year's dinner, they are" getting ready for 
theirs. 

Just now the struggle is to get enough money to 
start the New Year in good style. Every man, woman 
and child wants a new suit of clothes, and enough for 
his New Year's dinner, and his New Year's presents. 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 37 

Therefore everyone is working now as lie never worked 
before. In the fields and in the shops the work goes 
on until after dark, and late at night the lights are 
burning in the stores, and these hardest of all the hard 
workers of the world doing double duty. 

This is a great time for the bargain counter. Stocks 
of merchandise are being everywhere sacrificed to make 
the merchants come out even, and to enable them to 
pay all their debts before Kew Year's day. 

The holiday season is China's grand settlement 
time. An invoice of stock is then taken in all the 
stores, and business men expect their customers to 
settle their accounts. And do the Chinese give New 
Year's gifts? Yes, indeed! They are more generous 
in this respect than we are. For a week following New 
Year's day there is nothing but feasting and present 
giving. The narrow streets of every town will soon be 
crowded with servants carrying presents from one 
family to another, and the, servants themselves always 
receive presents from their masters. A common pres- 
ent among equals is a loose skinned orange, known as 
the Mandarin orange, which has the same name in 
China as the word for good luck, and which is given as 
indicating good wishes on the part of the giver. Mer- 
chants usually send presents to their customers, and 
many gifts are interchanged among business firms. I 
know many foreigners in China who get presents of 
ralue from their Chinese friends every New Year, and 



S8 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

among the gifts received are elegantly engraved silver 
mugs or cups. A pair of new shoes is a common gift 
among the poorer class, and nearlj every one goes out 
to pay New Year's calls upon his friends. 

New Year's day is the birthday of all the Chinese; 
all of these throe or four hundred millions of people 
will have a birthday within a few weeks. A Chinese 
baby is a year old on the first New Year's after its birth, 
and one year older on every i^ew Year's thereafter. In 
this way the ages of all the Chinese are computed, and 
the tens of thousands of babies who will be born 
between now and New Year's will have a big start over 
the older babies who saw the light ten months ago. 
The Chinaman can combine his IsTew Year's gifts and 
his birthday gifts, and can congratulate himself on his 
economical plan of having his Fourth of July, his 
Christmas and his New Year's all on the same day. If he 
wants to honor his brother, he can call his New Year's 
feast a dinner in celebration of his brother's birthday, 
and he can call his New Year's gift a birthday present. 

The preparation for New Year's which is now going 
on all over China extends to houses and stores as well 
as to clothes. Everything is cleaned and scrubbed ; the 
walls of the houses are washed and redecorated, and the 
stone floors are made to shine like those of a Dutch 
kitchen. Many of the houses are repaired, signs are 
regilded and painted, and everything is cleaned up for 
the New Year. The night before New Year's, on the 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac, 39 

doors of the houses aod upon the walls of the interior, 
are pasted or hung New Year's mottoes and prayers. 
These are printed in big letters on red strips of paper, 
and are of all sizes and curious character. Some con- 
tain sentences from the Chinese classics. Others bear 
the word ^' Fuh," which means happiness, and over 
many of the doors of stores you see strips of paper 
pasted, reading thus : *' May the Five Blessings Descend 
in this Door" ; or, "Peace to Him who Enters or De- 
parts." On one in Canton was a card which asked the 
gods to give the merchant big profits, and read : '^ With 
a Principal of One, may I have a Gain of a Thousand." 
Another was as follows : " May this Store have Ten 
Thousand Rich Customers." And a third : " May my 
Year be a Beautiful one." Inside the houses are similar 
inscriptions, and each man has a piece of poetry, or 
wisdom, or a prayer especially fitted to himself and his 
business. The boat people put slips of paper bearing 
their prayers on their boats. Farmers put theirs on the 
trees and farm implements, and a student may hang up 
a prayer for learning or wisdom. There is such a 
demand for these cards at Il^ew Year's that the writing 
of them is a business, and scribes with their ink-pots 
and brushes and bundles of red cards, sit at tables in 
the streets and paint them to order. 

The Chinese New Year has its superstitions even 
to a greater extent than ours has. Some of the people 
believe if they bathe themselves all over the night 



JfD Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

before Kew Year's with warm water in which certain 
kinds of leaves have been boiled, they will not be sick 
throughout the year. They think that New Year's day 
is the most lucky day for weddings or engagements, 
and the match-makers have their busiest season during 
holidays. If, in starting out for New Year's calling, 
you meet a good looking man you will have good luck; 
but if the first person you meet is a woman, your luck 
will be bad. Almost everything that happens on that 
day is ominous, and the professional astrologers and 
the diviners do a good business. The Chinese New 
Year is, above all, a day of jollity and good resolu- 
tions, and neither the government nor the people do 
any work on this day. The shops are all shut, and in 
case of public offices, these remain closed for three 
weeks. Everyone from boy to old man feels on that 
day that he has gotten a new lease of life, and that the 
future is going to be better than the past. Boys run 
through the streets yelling out the sentences : " We 
want to sell our bad habits, who will buy ? " And as 
in the paying up of debts, so in the reformation of 
character every one feels that he has gotten free from 
his evil obligations, so as to habits and actions, and for 
the holidays at least feels that he is to be a new man, 
and that the sun of his moral, intellectual and financial 
prosperity is rising. 

Slavery is all that Hymen ufifers to the forlorn 
maidens of China. The marriage customs of the Flow- 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 4,1 

ery Kingdom are very curious. There is no such thing 
as a love match in China. Of course there could not 
be, where there is absolutely no social intercourse 
betv^een men and women, and where it is, in fact, a 
disgrace for a girl to be seen by any man save her father 
and brothers. There are no chance meetings '' comin' 
thro' the rye," no strolls in the twilight, no partings 
full of " sweet sorrow " at the gate under the moon- 
beams. Absolutely separated by the insurmountable 
wall of inexorable custom, the girl totters around at her 
household tasks almost a cripple on her poor, little 
deformed feet ; while the boy stolidly goes about his 
daily tasks either at school or in the field, until it is 
decided by their parents that it is time for them to 
marry. When that time arrives, the parents of 
the young man go to a <' go-between," a regular 
matrimonial agent who, for a fixed stipend, agrees 
to find him a wife. She inquires about among 
her acquaintances until she finds a girl whose parents 
are willing to sell her, (for a sale it is,) for the suni 
offered by the family of the young man as a marriage 
portion. When she has been found and the preliminary 
negotiations have proved satisfactory, presents as ex- 
changed between the two families, and also between 
the two young people. This exchange of presents con- 
stitutes the betrothal, and, according to the New York 
Evening Post, it is so binding that it cannot be legally 
broken under any circumstances. Even should the 



4^ Sixteen Years on the Bark Blue Sea, 

young girl discover, (as she often does,) that her future 
husband is a cripple, or insane, or even that horrible 
thing, a leper, she must go to him and obey his parents 
as his wife. 

Early on the morning of the vredding the girl's 
mother goes out and gathers flowers from twelve differ- 
ent plants. These are boiled and the bride bathes in 
the water. She then puts on an entire new suit of 
clothes, and while dressing stands in a round bottom 
basket. This is supposed to bring her good luck. This 
is red, a red gauze veil covers her from head to foot, 
and around her forehead she wears a red band, from 
which a red frieze falls over her face. 

When dressed, she bids good-bye to her mother and 
is taken into the outer room by her " go-between ; " 
two male members of the bridegroom's family are 
waiting for her with a sedan chair to carry her to her 
new home. As she is carried off, custom demands that 
she should cry and wail aloud, l^o member of her 
own family accompanies her, entirely alone she is leav- 
ing her home forever; her former friends and compan- 
ions she may never see again, alone she is about to 
enter on a new life among total strangers; she is going 
to a slavery as absolute and irrevocable as any that ever 
existed, and more otten than not, she, (be it remem- 
bered,) is a child of twelve years old or under. Arriv- 
ing at the bridegroom's home, she is greeted and led 
into the house by the *' mistress of ceremonies," a 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac, iS 

woman chosen for having a large number of children ; 
led by her into the house, she and the bridegroom sit 
down at a table set in the main room, and are served 
with a collation by her and the " go-between." As this 
is the first time that the young couple have been face to 
face, it may readily be supposed that they are curious 
about each other's appearance. 

When the meal is over the bride is uncermoniously 
conducted into an inner apartment, which has been elab- 
orately decorated for her reception. Everything is cov- 
ered with red, embroidered with different colors, and in 
this red room, which is to be her home (or prison) for 
the rest of her life, the poor girl sits alone for the rest 
of the long day. Ko one breaks in upon her soltitude, 
no one speaks to her ; occasionally some one looks in 
at the door to see if she is sitting, immovable, her red 
draperies by the side of her red table, as etiquette pre- 
scribes. She is now virtually a slave from this time 
forth. 

Having taken up considerable space in telling you 
about the Chinaman's I^ew Year, I will now drop that 
subject and tell you more about the country in my next 
voyage. Of course we could not do any business with 
the merchants during their festivities, we therefore 
spent our time in sight-seeing, when not engaged in 
duty on the ship. 

" Time and tide wait for no man," and surely would 
not wait for us. After laying at Canton about three 



ii. Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

months we got our cargo oft' and another one on board, 
consisting of tea, silk, porcelain ware, and manufac- 
tured goods, consigned to San Francisco, Cal., U. S. A. 
We were not able to get a consignment for New York. 
One beautiful morning in our month of May, we hoisted 
anchor and dropped down by the custom house, where 
we were inspected, preparatory to sailing for what we 
called " God's Country," i, e., America. In due course 
of time we reached San Francisco, without anything 
happening worth mentioning. 

After laying in port five weeks, we got ready to 
start for Australia. We were to touch at Honolulu, the 
capital of the Sandwich Islands. The voyage was a 
rough one ; we met trade winds and storms, but we had 
a good ship beneath us, and weathered it through all 
right, and put in at the island '^0. K.'' After we got 
through with our trading with the Sandwich merchants, 
and holding up about four weeks, we set sail for Queens- 
land, Australia, which we reached in due time, having 
fair wind and good weather. 

I wish to say right here that Queensland is as near 
a garden spot of the world as any place I ever saw dur- 
ing my sixteen years of seafaring, taking products, 
climate, and all advantages into consideration. I pre- 
sume my readers are acquainted with the history of 
this rich land, therefore I will say but little about it at 
present; but I will say that we were very busy during 
the next six weeks getting out our cargo and getting 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac, Jf.5 

on another. We loaded with wool consigned for New 
York. When we got loaded we went down to New 
South Wales and to Victoria; what for I do not know. 
After a short stop at each place, we started for the 
United States. We experienced considerable rough 
weather on our way home, but got through with only 
the loss of the top galliard. And in due time we 
reached Bedlows Island, IST. Y. harbor, and there we 
dropped anchor, and hoisted a signal for a pilot. Soon 
a tug-boat came and towed us up to the city. After 
receiving our pay and buying some new clothing, I 
boared the train for home again. 

Yes, "home sweet home, there's no place like 
home." Having been absent nineteen months and ten 
days, with but a few letters from home, not having 
received a letter for three months, unexpectedly to them, 
I arrived and found my family well, and glad enough 
to see me. The little one that I left a three months old 
baby in his mother's arms, I found running around and 
talking almost as well as myself. 

While I am making my visit an home I will mingle 
a little nonsence, — a little of which now and then is 
relished by the best of men. Of course in my sixteen 
years as a sailor and four years in the army, I have met 
with many funny instances; some of them so funny, 
that should I relate them, would sound more like fairy 
tales than truth. But I don't propose to fill my book 
with " tom-foolery " for I think life too short and too full 



Jfi Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

of serious responsibilities to spend much of our time in 
that direction. I have seen young people with their 
noses turned skyward, who mingle in the best of society, 
that cannot hold a fifteen minute intelligent conversa- 
tion. I have also seen men whose lives have been 
nearly spent on the dark blue sea, unlettered, and 
almost out of civilization, that could talk intelligently 
on almost any subject. The difference of the two is, 
the one is rattle-headed and indifferent, did not culti- 
vate the powers, tastes and senses that God had given 
him; while the other was a keen observer, and had 
improved his opportunities. As I expect this little 
book to be read by the grave as well as the gay, I will 
relate some of the funny scenes of my life. 

A FEW BLUNDERS. 

Living on a farm in our neighborhood was a Col- 
onel Green, who had in his employ a French-Canadian. 
The old sow had pigs, and the Colonel thought they did 
not get enough to eat. He told the Frenchman tfo put 
some straw in front of the trough, some milk in the 
trough, then place the pigs on the straw and learn them 
to eat. Instead of doing this right, he turned the milk 
on the straw, caught the pigs and put them in the trough. 

This same Colonel owned an old plug of a horse 
that the Frenchman used to ride when he went to town. 
One night he went to town with his old plug, and while 
he was drinking, we boys untied his horse and let him go 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomae. Ifl 

home. By-and-by the Frenchman came out and found 
his horse gone. Then there was a French charge. He 

said, "By d n, I give ^n^ dollars to know who 

hitched my horse loose." 

There was another very ignorant man in our neigh- 
borhood. He owned a farm, and some one asked him 
how much land he owned. He said, " My deed calls 
for one hundred and sixty acres, more and more." 

One spring he was building a barn. He was asked 
how large his barn was to be. He replied, " It is to be 
40x40 a hundred feet long." 

At one of our town meetings he was elected 
suveyor — just for the fun of the thing. He was sworn 
into office and began repairing the roads. He removed 
fences, cut down shade trees, and played the devil in 
general. One old farmer complained to him that he 
had no right to cut down trees on the public highway. 
He replied, " By G — d, I have power to move a boiling 
spring out of the road if I want to." 

Well, this is enough nonsense at present. 

I have been at home five weeks, and I must get to 
work again, for when my work stops my pay stops. 
There are now four mouths to feed, four backs to clothe, 
rent to pay and wood to buy. I was suffering a great 
deal with my head and did not know how soon I would 
have to quit the sea. I told my wife I must go to 
Portsmouth or Boston and look for a chance to ship. 



JfS Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

I had received a letter from a shipmate in Portsmouth 
stating there was a schooner laying at the wharf in that 
city, and a crew was wanted. I hastened to Portsmouth 
and got a job on her. She was going up the Kennebec, 
and take a load of ice to New Orleans, and there load 
with cotton for Liverpool, and return with salt for New 
York. Nothing happened worth mentioning until we 
got our ice on board and reached New Orleans. We 
discharged our ice and loaded withtjotton bales. After 
loading, we hoisted anchor and set sail. 

When about four days out, we sprung a leak, and 
was ordered to man the pumps. We found her leaking 
badly, we had to pump about two hundred and fifty 
strokes per hour all the way across the ocean, which 
lasted about twenty-eight days. After reaching Liver- 
pool we discharged our freight and cabled to the owners 
in New York, asking them what to do with the schooner. 
They answered to place her in the dry docks and have 
her repaired. After she was high and dry, the captain 
told us it would be about six weeks before she would 
be ready to again sail, and that we could go and see the 
country or stay in the city. I chose the former, and 
visited most all places of interest ; while traveling, I 
made the impression that I was an American, and was 
treated kindly. When I saw how the poor classes of 
England had to live and the facilities they had for edu- 
cation, I thanked God that I was an American citizen. 

After roaming about England for ^ve weeks, I 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 4,9 

came back to Liverpool and found my ship almost 
done. After she was taken out of the dry dock, we 
loaded her with salt and set sail for E"ew York City. 
We had a very pleasant time crossing the Atlantic. 
Upon reaching ]S"ew York, we received our pay and 
once again I started for my family. I remained with 
them a few days and then moved them to Kettery, 
Maine, at which place I got a job in the U. S. J^avy 
Yard as a blacksmith's helper. After working about 
seven months, I noticed that work was falling ofl*, and 
knew that a discharge was likely to follow soon. A 
three-mast schooner was laying at the navy yard, that 
had just discharged a cargo of live oak, and was going 
to Pensacoia, Fla., for another load, for the navy yard 
at Washington, D. C. I shipped on her ; we went to 
Florida, got our live oak and returned to Washington. 
I then left her and went back home, where I remained 
a few weeks and rested up a little. 

I then went to Boston and shipped again on a 
bark for San Domingo, with a cargo of empty hogs- 
heads, and brought back a cargo of raw sugar and 
molasses. We then run up the Kennebec and took a 
load of ice to New Orleans, and there took turpentine 
and resin to a port in Mexico. 

When off the southern coast of Mexico, we exper- 
ienced one of the most terrible thunder storms that ever 
was my misfortune to witness. The thunder roared, 
the lightning flashed, and the rain fell in torrents. 



50 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

The wind blew a furious gale. We took in all sail and 
scudded under bare poles. At four o'clock it was as dark 
as midnight, and all on board was expecting to go 
down every moment. Suddenly there came a terrible 
clap of thunder, instantly followed by a flash of light- 
ing. It struck our main top mast, shattering it to 
splinters. It run down the mast taking everything 
with it, and into the hold of the vessel, there bursting 
a barrel of turpentine and setting fire to our vessel. I 
want to say to you, dear reader, that if man ever thinks 
of God and mother he would do so in times like this. 
We lowered our boats in the raging and surging sea, in 
blinding darkness, and managed to get away from the 
burning ship by means of the light from the flames and 
the flashes of lightning. There we were in open boats 
in a raging sea, without food or drink, or even a com- 
pass ; not knowing where we were or where going, 
but thanked God that it was as well with us as it 
was. We had two boats and fourteen men all told. 
We lashed our boats together the best we could so as 
not to get separated. We were tossed about until day- 
light. At about twelve o'clock at night as near as we 
could tell, the storm somewhat abated and when day- 
light appeared, the sun rose in the east bright and clear, 
and by t«n o'clock our clothing was dry, and so were 
our throats. We kept a close watch all day for a ship, 
but none was to be seen. Nothing but a vast body of 
water was our surrounding. Thus another day passed, 



Four Years ivith the Army of the Potomac. 51 

and night came on, and we were still in our open boats, 
without food or water. 

At about eight o'clock next morning a little shower 
of rain fell. This was a God-send to us thirsty mariners. 
It wet our shirts and we sucked the water from them 
and cooled our parched tongues, and partially alleviated 
our intense thirst. It seemed to me that if I ever tasted 
anything in my life that was sweet and good, it was 
that water sucked from my dirty shirt, full of tar and 
sweat. Another day and night passed and no sails yet 
in sight. "Oh, God!" we cried, "are we going to be 
left to perish of hunger and thirst in this way?" On 
the fourth day of our perilous voyage-, at about sunset, 
we spied a ship about a mile and a half away. One of 
the men had on a red shirt, which he pulled off and 
hoisted on an oar. We tried our best to attract the 
attention of the ship's crew. After about half an hour 
we saw evidence that we were seen, as the ship changed 
her course and bore down on us. Just before dark we 
were ouce more on the deck of a good ship. They 
began caring for us, for we were almost perished from 
hunger and thirst. There was a doctor on board who 
took charge of us, and began by feeding us a table- 
spoonful of water and a piece of bread about an inch 
square, soaked in water, and a little brandy. This 
amount was given us every half hour for twenty-four 
hours, after which they were more liberal. In due time 
we were all restored to health again, with no particular 
bad results. 



5^ Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

The ship that picked us up proved to be a barker- 
teen, John Eogers, bound for Porto Rico, South Amer- 
ica. Her captain was Frank Dingley, who carried us 
to the port of Porto Eico. There the two captains 
went to the American Consul who provided for us by 
securing boarding for us, and told us to keep a lookout 
for a chance to ship back to the United. States. In about 
three weeks I got a job on a ship bound for Savannah, 
Ga., at very small pay, however. But thank Provi- 
dence I got enough money to pay my way home again 
and still had a little cash, left. I found my family well. 

Those that go down to the sea in ships sometimes 
undergo horrors and hardships that cannot be experi- 
enced on terra-firma. We are glad to know that serious 
disasters on the briny deep do not occur as often as for- 
merly ; yet they do occur at times, and always will. 

Perhaps some of my readers would like to know 
how sailors provide for their families at home while they 
are at sea. We get an order from the owners, to some 
store, at so much per month. If we are not at home, 
when we ship, the order is sent to the bank which cashes 
it at a small discount, and they then draw on the owners 
of the ship. I still have in my possession the following 
order : 

Portsmouth, N. H., April 19, 1869. 
Fernell & Simes, please pay to the order of Mary A. Eaton, fifteen 
dollars per month, and charge to the account of James R. Eaton at our 
store. Fernell & Simes. 



Four Years luith the Army of the Potomac. 5S 

This firm kept a store of family supplies, but would 
pay some money if my wife wished it. 

I owned my property and she had no rent to pay, 
and but the three children and herself to care for. I 
always left her some money besides, so that she did not 
want for anything while I was ^one. Sometimes I 
would leave her enough to pay her own way, but I felt 
safer in leaving an order, in case the ship went down 
she would have that much of my wages, and what little 
money I had on hand could then be used after I had 
gone to the bottom of the sea. It does not often hap- 
pen that ship owners ever pay the widows whose hus- 
bands perish while in their service. And yet the ship, 
as well as the cargo, is generally well insured. 

Kow in order not to worry the reader I will give 
you a few pages of miscellaneous. I have been more 
than two years writing, at different intervals, this far 
and will never finish at this rate. The reason I have 
been so long, I have tried to remember dates, but I find 
that I cannot do it, with only my memory to draw from. 
So I will go ahead and finish my book, writing only 
what comes to mind. It was my intention when I 
commenced writing, to give a complete history of my 
army life. But I find at this late date, (1893,) the 
soldier is looked upon by the masses with but very little 
favor, and the rising generation regard us with disgrace 
rather than honor. Therefore I shall say but little on 
that point, but consider the forty-nine months that I 



5Jf Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

served in the army as thrown away, notwithstanding 
that when I was mustered in the army of the United 
States service I swore that I would obey my superiors, 
and I did. When I was ordered to advance, I advanced; 
when ordered to retreat, I also obeyed. If I was wanted 
for guard or picket duty, I went, and went without 
grumbling or murmuring. If the government did not 
use me to a good advantage, it is responsible and not 
me, for I was there to be used. 

I meditate upon my childhood and respectfully 
dedicate this little piece of poetry to the sweetheart of 
my boyhood. 

WHEN I WAS MARY'S BEAU. 

Away down east, where I was raised, among my Yankee kith, 
There used to live a pretty girl whose name was Mary Smith ; 
And though it's many years since last I saw that pretty girl, 
And though I feel I'm sadly worn by western strife and whirl. 
Still, oftentimes I think about the old familiar place. 
Which oftentimes seemed brighter for Miss Mary's pretty face. 
And in my heart I feel once more revivified the glow 
I used to feel in those old times when I was Mary's beau. 

On Friday night I'd drop around to make my weekly call, 
And, though I came to visit her, I'd have to see 'em all, 
With Mary's mother sitting here and Mary's father there. 
The conversation never flagged, so far as I'm aware. 
Sometimes I'd hold her worsted, sometimes we'd play at games. 
Sometimes dissect the apples which we named each others names — 
Oh, how I loathed the shrill toned clock, that told me when to go, 
T'was ten o'clock at half past eight, when I was Mary's beau. 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 55 

And Mary shall these lines of mine seek out your 'biding place, 
God grant they bring the old sweet smile back to your pretty face. 
God grant they bring you thoughts of me, not as I am to-day, 
With faltering steps and dimming eyes, and aspect grimly gray ; 
But thoughts that picture me as fair and full of life and glee, 
As we were in the olden time — as yon shall always be. 
Think of me ever Mary, as the boy you used to know 
When time was fleet, and life was sweet, and I was Mary's beau. 



I will now relate a few of the 



STARTLING TALES OF THE SEA, — A FEW FANTASTIC 



The love of '' yarning," or story telling is the most 
prominent characteristic of the sailor, and it is often 
surprising to note the flights which Jack's imagination 
will frequently take. To while away the long, weary 
hours of the night watches, the mariner resorts to spin- 
ning yarns as the most pleasant and congenial manner 
of breaking the monotony of the situation, and the man 
who possesses the most fertile brain and vivid imagina- 
tion, it is safe to say, stands high in the esteem of his 
shipmates. In the startling midnight tales, the truth is 
entirely ignored ; and, in fact, any semblance thereto 
would at once stamp the narrator as being wholly devoid 
of ideas, and not worthy an audience. On the contrary, 
he who could entertain his listeners with the recital of 
some incident which never did nor possibly could occur, 



56 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

was at once a prime favorite of the whole ship's com- 
pany. During many years at sea, both before and abaft 
the mast — for be it remembered that the officers of the 
quarter deck, are as much given to innocent pastime 
as the men in the forecastle — the writer has heard 
many a " cuffer '' (story) that would cause a crimson 
blush to mantle the cheeks and rise to the brow of 
veracity. Some of these are here repeated. 

It was a moon-light night, and the noble ship 
James and Mary was running down the trades with 
everything drawing a'low and aloft. The starboard or 
second mate's watch had the deck, and some ten men 
were seated in a group upon the main hatch 

'' Now I'll tell you what it is, my lads," began an 
old weather-beaten son of nature, who had shipped 
under the name of Tom Long; " these 'ere latitudes 
what we're in are the pleasantest that a sailor can find 
anywhar around the world, 'cause, you see, it aint too 
hot or too cold, its just about right; but I've been in 
my time where a feller would a wished he'd fell over- 
board on his first voyage, afore he'd got to sich a place." 

" Where was that, old son ? " asked one of the 
crew. 

" It was this a'way : Some years ago I left a vessel 
in the Pacific Islands, and joined a whaler to go ^blub- 
ber hunting.' We cruised about until we begun to git 
short of water and fresh pervisions, and the ' old man ' 
was jist making up his mind to go into port to refit. 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 57 

but hadn't jest decided whether he would go to Hono- 
lulu or bear away to the south'ard to make Australia. 
As I said, he hadn't made up his mind, but it didn't 
make much difference then, for we was in a dead calm, 
and couldn't a'gone nowhar. When all of a sudden, in 
the middle night of the watch, we felt the ship lifted 
up until about half her sides was out of the water, and 
then carried ahead faster'n any steamer ever traveled 
sinc6 the days that the boy played with the tea-kettle, 
twenty-six knots an hour if it was one ! 

*< 'What's the matter? ' says the ' old man.' 

" ' Don't know, sir,' says the mate, ' never seen 
anything like this afore.' 

" Over our stern we were leaving a wake that reached 
clear to the horizon, all we could do was to stand still 
and hold on. Two days and two nights we kept a'go- 
ing, not a man daring to let go, not even to get a bite 
to eat, for fear he would be blown overboard. Bimeby 
we raised the land, and we were heading straight for it. 

**' Great Keptune ! ' shouted the skipper, ' the chap 
that's got us in tow is going to pile us upon the reef.' 

*' But just as he spoke we began to slow down a bit, 
and when within about a mile of the shore, what do 
think?" 

" Don't know, Tom, don't know," quickly replied 
the interested listeners. 

"Well, lads, as I was telling you— two whales, that 
was each a good cable's length from 'blow-hole' to 



58 Sixteen Years on the Bark Blue Sea, 

* fluke/ * broke' water close alongside and sheared off, 
one to starb'd and the other to port, and we knowed it 
was them brutes what had been carrying us on their 
backs. 

" * Let go both anchors,' cried the capin. 

"And down went the mud hooks. When our 
headway was stopped, and the ship swung to her cables, 
we began to feel the hot air coming off from the land. 
We clued up the sails and spread the awning, but as I 
am a sailor, afore the canvass had been stretched over 
our decks an hour, it was scorched as brown, by the sun, 
as a tar bucket. 

" Pretty soon the mate called out, * We're dragging ! 
we're dragging ! ' E"ow that was queer, for there wasn't 
wind enough to blow a fly off the bald head of the 
skipper. I jumped forward and looked over the bow, 
and there were the ends of our two chain cables a hang- 
ing. The heat had been so great that they melted off 
about four feet from the hawse pipes. Then we set sail 
and run for Honolulu, where I left her." 

"Pugh ! " murmured some of his auditors. 

" I believe ye, Tom ; I believe ye," rejoined the 
boatswain, as he rolled the pipe from between his lips, 
"for I joined the same ship when she went up to cruise 
in the Artie. We got pretty well to the nor'ard, and as 
the whales were plenty we stayed a little longer than 
we'd orter, and one fine morning we found ourselves 
frozen in. * We've got to make the winter here,' said 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 69 

the " old man." We knowed it as well as he did, and 
it didn't make us feel any the better for it. 

" Every day it Mowed colder and colder, until along 
about Christmas time a cook couldn't boil water on the 
galley stove, for the ice in the kettle. The cap'n would 
stand on the quarter-deck and give an order, and the 
cabin boy would have to stand close beside him and cut 
the words off his beard, as they froze into icicles, then 
carry them for'ard to the mate, who would put them 
before his own mouth to thaw out, and when they 
began to melt you could hear them spoken just as 
plain as though the skipper was not two feet away. 
Now, that's what you won't call cold weather," conclu- 
ded the narrator in an oracular tone. 

*' You lads have seen some pretty strange things, 
and no mistake," spoke up Jim Bowlin, a grizzled 
mariner; "but them was all out in the Pacific and 
Arctic. But I've seen sights in the east, though they 
had nothing to do with cold or heat, yet they were 
such as would make any man believe the world was a 
coming to an end. It was when I was aboard a big 
hunk of a bark bound to Manilla. Now, it seemed the 
<old man' had two chronometers in the cabin, one of 
them he'd taken, the voyage before, from a sinking 
ship, and I suppose he had them both set correct before 
leaving port. However, when we were in the Indian 
Ocean, one of them got astray; that is, they didn't 
* ji6e,' and which one was wrong, and which one to go 



60 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

by, the skipper didnn't know, so he was all at sea as 
to our longitude. We ^worked up' our latitude hoping 
to fall in with some other vessel that would give us 
our time. But we didn't. So when we got in about 
twelve degrees south, we kept off the west in order to 
make the broad side of Madagascar, because, if any of 
you are navigators you'll know by hitting a point of 
laud you can find your exact time. We kept on this 
course for a matter of two days, when, in the night 
time, all at once, we ^ fetched up.' We were nearer the 
land than we'd calculated on. In an hour after she 
struck, the ship was a wreck on a reef about half a 
mile from shore, and we were in the boats. All hands 
made a safe landing on the beach, but I tell you, ship- 
mates, it was a wild country. At daylight we, all of 
us, went seeking for something to eat and drink. 

" Three or four of us, with the second mate, struck 
inland and had traveled maybe three cable's length, 
when all at once the officer said : * There, boys, is a 
palm tree which will give us some good fresh water. 
Now I'll climb aloft and top the ' beggar.' So he 
started up the trunk. It wasn't a tall tree like a cocoa- 
nut, but shorter, more like a plantain, with big long 
leaves drooping down almost to the ground. 

" Well, the second mate got to the top and set him- 
self right in the middle, when, as I'm a saint, those 
leaves began to straighten out, then lift their points up, 
and curl together. We hollered to the officer to lay 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 61 

down from aloft. But he didn't start in time, and those 
leaves kept a binding and binding, until we lost sight 
of the man. We heard him sing out for help, but we 
couldn't do anything; it just crushed the poor fellow 
to death. 

"We ran back and told the captain what had hap- 
pened. He came up and looked at the tree, and then 
he said : * I've heard of such things, but I never saw 
it before. Our second mate is gone.' The next morn- 
ing we took a look at the palm, and there she was, with 
her great broad leaves a drooping down just as natural 
as ever, and the body of the poor fellow all crushed to 
a jelly lying on the top of it." 

" I say, Jim, that's a pretty tough yarn ! " broke 
in one of the men. 

"But nevertheless, I believe it," said one sailor 
named Bill, "because I've seen a sight that's just as 
strange as that." 

"No doubt of it, shipmate,^' returned Jim, "for 
you have been around this world a good bit. But what 
was it that befell you ? " 

" It came about pretty much as your scrape did. I 
was wrecked on one of the Crozet Islands in the Indian 
Ocean, but then only two of us got ashore alive. We 
happened to strike a little patch of sandy beach that 
was kind of sheltered like, and climbed up out of the 
surf. I lay down on the ground all tuckered out, but 
my shipmate crawled upon the top of a rock to dry 
himself in the sun, as he said. 



62 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

" We were close together and talking all the time, 
when by-and-by, Bob, that was his name, his voice 
became kind of distant like, and I thought he was 
walking away from me. 

" But no, thf^re he was, as I saw when I raised my- 
self on one elbow to look. But he wasn't more than 
half the size he was when we first got ashore. 

*'< What's the mater. Bob? Aren't you feeling 
well?' I asked. 

" ^ Never felt better in my life,' he replied. 

" ' What makes you look so small ? ' 

" ^I'm just as large as I ever was. The shipwreck 
has turned your brain.' 

" I knew it hadn't. There he was on top of the 
boulder, but no bigger than the cook's cat. Then I got 
up, thinking I must be dreaming, and started toward 
him ; but shipmates, when I got to the rock there was 
nothing left of poor Bob but his belt and sheathknife. 
Yes, the rock had swallowed him up, and left me alone 
on a desert island." 

A short pause ensued, when a fifth sailor said : 

'' I don't suppose any of you fellows, to look at me 
now, would think that I was once as rich as the great 
Mogul. But I was, and it happened in this way. It 
was at the time of the gold fever in Australia, along 
somewhere in '50 or '51. I was before the mast in a 
packet ship sailing from Liverpool to Melbourne. They 
were paying big wages to sailors homeward bound, for 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 63 

most of the crews ot the vessels jumped and made for 
the diggings. Well, I didn't care for that sort of thing, 
so I started for England in the Eoyal George. We 
were coming home round Cape of Good Hope, but 
when in the Indian Ocean we took a cyclone that drove 
us a long way out of our course, and nearly dismasted 
us. We made for an island that was near about and 
came to an anchor to repair. When some of us were 
going ashore in the boat to see if we could get some 
timber, we smelt the awfulest smell that a man could 
think about. We all wanted to pull back to the ship 
to get out of it, but the second mate, who was an old 
whaler, stood up in the boat and began to sniff and 
sniff. Then he sang out : 

" * Give way ! boys, give way ! and we'll all be rich 
men, for I smell ambergris!' And sure enough all 
about us was floating chunks of the stuff in pieces as big 
as my fist, and on up to a water cask. The captain 
was near crazy when we carried some of it back aboard ; 
and for three days we done nothing but gather amber- 
gris and stow it away in our hold. Then we turned to 
and rigged jury masts and headed for Cape Town. 
There we sold out, and how much do you suppose we 
got apiece ? You know it's worth more than its weight 
in gold." 

" Couldn't say," replied some of the sailors in 
chorus. 

" Well boys, as true as I'm a settin on this hatch, 



64' Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

we were paid off with five hundred pounds to a man.'' 
($2,500.) 

"Five hundred pounds!" exclaimed the mariner 
who had experienced the hot weather. "And what 
became of your whack?" 

"Whatever becomes of a sailor's money? I spent 
it like a man inside of twelve months and was then off 
again to sea." 

The second mate had walked forward in time to 
overhear the last two yarns, and interrupted the story- 
telling by saying, with a smile on his face: 

"Now then, my lads, if you've finished with your 
cuffers, supposing you use some of your wind in haul- 
ing taut this weather main brace." 

And from that time until the eight belis struck the 
starboard watch was kept busy pulling and hauling, 
first on this brace and that sheet, this tack and that 
halyard, until when it was time to go below, the men 
thought more of going to sleep than they did of listen- 
ing further to startling tales of the sea. 



AN OLD VETERAN S STORY. 

A veteran tells this story of Gen. Sherman : 

" I was in a railroad car on a certain occasion, 

going to the unveiling of a monument to some general. 

We were in the smoker, when G-en. Sherman, who had 

been in the sleeping car, came in. He sat down and 



Four Years loith the Army of the Potomac. 65 

began talking to me. In a few minutes an old soldier 
came in and said : 

'' Gen. Sherman I want to shake hands with you. 
I am an old soldier who fought through the war." 

"Tell me/^ said Gen. Sherman, reaching out his 
hand, " did you put down the rebellion ? " 

"No." 

" Well, sit down then ; I am always glad to talk 
with an old soldier who didn't put down the rebellion." 

Now I don't feel as though I could consistently 
finish my work, without speaking about the bravery of 
some of our American women, as they proved them- 
selves to be, during the war of the rebellion, and in the 
war of 1812, and that of the revolution. 

The women of the Revolutionary War were gen- 
erous, high spirited and devoted. They resigned their 
property without a sigh, went from house to house beg- 
ging for the Continental army, embroidered colors, dis- 
tributed arms and ammunition, exhorting the men to 
use them like heroes. Even the girls in many instances 
pledged themselves not to receive addresses from lovers 
who had not given proof of love for their country. 
The records are full of noble deeds and bravery, some 
of which are here presented : 

One one occasion, when a boy had fallen under 
suspicion, who was in the habit of bringing letters to 
the " rebels," concealed on his person, a young woman 



66 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

entered into a game of romps with him in the market- 
place of the town, and, covering his head with her 
apron, abstracted his dispatches. When she got home 
with her prize and found that the missive contained good 
news, this gay, high spirited lassie, not knowing how 
to give vent to her joy without exciting the observation 
of the towns-people, stuck her head out of the window 
and gave a shout for the " Republic ! " 

When the first call to arms sounded through the 
land, a Mrs. Drapier immediately exhorted her husband 
to lose no time in hastening to the scene of action, and 
with her own hands bound knapsack and blanket on 
the shoulders of her only son, a stripling of sixteen, 
bidding him depart and do his duty. To the entreaties 
of her daughter that her young brother might remain 
ot home to be their protector, she answered that every 
able-bodied man and arm belonged to the country. 
" He is wanted and must go. You and I, Kate, have 
also service to do. Food must be prepared for the 
hungry ; for before to-morrow night hundreds, I hope 
thousands, will be on their way to join the Continental 
army. Some who have traveled far will need refresh- 
ment, and you and I, with Molly, must feed as many as 
we can." For two days and a night she employed her- 
self diligently in baking bread; and then, erecting a 
long table on the road-side, she covered it with pans of 
bread and cheese, placing great pails of cider beside 
them. 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 67 

After the battle of Bunker Hill there was a great 
scarcity of ammnnition, and Washington called upon 
the inhabitants to send him every ounce of pewter or 
lead in their province. This appeal could not be disre- 
garded ; but it is difficult at this day to estimate the 
value of pewter, as well as its indispensable convenience. 
The more precious metals had not then found their way 
to the tables of the New Englanders ; and throughout 
the country services of pewter, scoured to the bright- 
ness of silver, covered the board even in the houses of 
the wealthy. Few withheld their portion in that hour 
of need, and noble were the sacrifices made by these 
patriots in presenting their willing offerings. 

Mrs. Drapier was rich in a large stock of pewter, 
which she valued as the greatest ornament of her house. 
Much of it was precious to her as the gift of a departed 
mother. But the call reached her heart, and she was 
thankful that she was able to contribute so largely to 
the requirements of her country. The supply of 
domestic cloth designed for her family was in a short 
time converted by her labor, assisted by her daughter 
and the maid, into coats for the soldiers; the sheets 
and blankets with which her presses were stored, were 
fashioned into shirts; and even the flannels already 
made up for laerself and daughter, were altered into 
men's garments. 

A Mrs. Pond, of Connecticut, assisted only by 
another woman and a hired man, on a sudden emer- 



68 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

gency, prepared in a single hour a breakfast of milk 
and hasty pudding for one hundred hungry and wearied 
soldiers. 

A patriot by the name of Israel, falling under 
something more than suspicion, was taken on board an 
English frigate as a spy, and a detachment of marines 
was sent to caputre and slaughter his cattle. Mrs. 
Israel was a young wife of nineteen, about to become 
a mother, and is described as of a slight and girlish 
figure; modest and retiring manners. On seeing the 
marines land, however, and accompanied by a boy of 
only eight years of age, she set out at full speed to 
the rescue of the cattle. This she effected by driving 
them into the barn-yard, with the shot of the enemy 
falling thick about her. There they were safe, for the 
British forces in that quarter were not in a condition 
to invade farm houses. 

One noble woman, Mrs. Gibb8,it is recorded, in the 
midst of scenes of violence, during the robbery of her 
house by the British troops, commanded even their 
respect by her calm and lady like deportment. In her 
presence all was, at least, the show of decorum. Main- 
taining her place as mistress of her household, and 
presiding at her table, she treated her uninvited guests 
with a dignified courtesy that insured civility, while it 
prevented presumptions familiarity. The boldest and 
rudest among them bowed involuntarily to an influence 
which fear or force could not have secured. 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 69 

Mrs. Mott appears conspicuously in her heroism 
when she consented to the destruction of her property. 
Her magnificent house interrupted the progress of an 
important siege, and the American comlnander hinted 
with great embarrassment to a lady, to whom the patri- 
otic cause owed so much, that its destruction would 
lead in all probability to the capture of the enemy. 
The smile with which the communication was received 
gave instant relief to the embarrassed officer, Mrs. Mott 
not only consented, but declared that she was gratified 
with the opportunity of contributing to the good of 
her country, and should view the approaching scene 
with delight. Shortly after, seeing the bows and arrows 
which had been prepared to carry combustible matter, 
she sent for Lee, and, presenting him with a bow and 
its apparatus which had been imported from India, 
requested his substitution of them as better suited for 
the object than those provided. The house was burned 
down before her eyes. The British garrison surrend- 
ered, and, after the captors had taken possession, Mrs. 
Mott signalized the occasion by presiding with feminine 
grace at a grand dinner of the officers. 

William Martin was killed at the battle of Augusta, 
and a British officer rode out of his way to gratify his 
hatred of the "rebels'' by conveying the intelligence 
abruptly to the bereaved mother. " You had a son," 
said he, "in the army at Augusta. I saw his brains 
blown out on the field of battle." The American 



70 Sixteen Years on the Bark Blue Sea^ 

woman did not blanch for an instant; her countenance 
was calm, whatever strife may have been going on 
within, and looking steadily at the ruffian, she answered : 
" He could not have died in a nobler cause." 

At a time when the failure of ammunition began to 
be vexatiously felt in the American army, supplies of 
war were secreted in hollow trees and other such places. 
The amount given to Col. Bratton was confided by him, 
during an occasional absence, to the care of his wife; 
but the circumstances becoming in some way known, 
a detachment of the enemy was sent to secure it. Mrs. 
Bratton was made aware of their near approach, and 
immediately laid a train of powder from the depot to 
the spot where she stood, and when the detachment 
came in sight, set fire to the train and blew it up. The 
explosion that greeted the ears of the foe informed 
them that the object of their expedition was frustrated. 
The officer of the command, irritated to fury, demanded 
who had dared to perpetrate such an act, and threatened 
instant and severe vengeance upon the culprit. The 
intrepid woman, answering for herself: " It was I who 
did it, let the consequences be what they will, I glory 
in having prevented the mischief contemplated by the 
cruel enemies of my country." 

A quiet, unobtrusive looking house in Philadelphia, 
inhabited by a Quaker couple by the name of Darragh, 
was chosen by the British officers as a place for private 
conference; and one evening of their meeting, the 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 71 

party in command exhibited so much anxiety to get 
the family to bed, that the alarm of the mistress, Lydia 
Darragh, was excited. She could not rest that night. 
She heard in imagination sounds of feet from the mid- 
night council, and at length getting up, she stole like a 
shadow to the door of the room, and heard the reading 
of a paper, containing the plan of attack upon the 
American army at the White Marsh on the next day 
but one. She crept back to bed and a knock at her 
door soon announced that her mysterious guests were 
departing. She arose, shut up her house, and collected 
her thoughts. Information must be given to her 
countrymen of the impending destruction; but by 
whom ? To employ her husband would be to place him 
in imminent jeopardy, and she determined to be herself 
the messenger. Early the next morning, taking an 
empty sack with her for the ostensible purpose of pro- 
curing flour for her family, she went to headquarters, 
obtained Gen. Howe's written permiseion to pass the 
British lines, and then walking through the snow to 
Frankfort, deposited her sack at the mill. She then 
pressed forward toward the American outposts, but 
luckily falling in with an afficer on the way, she 
delivered her fateful tidings. Lydia returned home 
with her sack of flour the same day, and the baffled 
British never could imagine to whom they owed this 
unfathomable treachery. 

Early in the war, Gov. Rutledge sent out a quantity 



72 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

of arms and ammunition to the house of Col. Thomas, 
to be ready in case of any emergency that might arise 
on the frontier. These munitions were under guard 
of twenty-five men, and the house was prepared to 
resist assault. Col. Thomas received information that 
a large party of Tories, under command of Col. Moore, 
of North Carolina, was advancing to attack him. He 
and his guard deeming it inexpedient to risk an 
encounter with a force so much superior to their own, 
retired, carrying as much ammunition as possible. 
Josiah Culbertson, a son-in-law of Col. Thomas, who 
was with the little garrison, would not go with the 
others, and remained in the house. Besides him and a 
boy, the only inmates were women. The Tories 
advanced and took up their station, but the treasure 
was not to be yielded to their demand. Their call for 
admittance was answered by an order to leave the 
premises, and their fire was received without much 
injury by the logs of which the house was built. Their 
fire was quickly returned from the upper story, and 
proved much more eflTectual than that of the assailants. 
The old-fashioned " batten " door, strongly barricaded, 
resisted their efforts to demolish it. 

Meanwhile Culbertson continued to fire, the guns 
being loaded as fast as he discharged them, by the ready 
hands of Mrs. Thomas and her daughters, aided by her 
son, William; and this spirited resistance very shortly 
convinced the enemy that further effort was useless. 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 73 

Believing that many men were concealed in the house, 
and apprehending a sally, their retreat was made as 
rapidly as their wounds would permit. After waiting 
a prudent time, and reconnoitering as well as she could 
from her position above, Mrs. Thomas descended the 
stairs and opened the doors. The powder thus preserved 
constituted the principal supply for Sumter's army in 
the battles of Eocky Mount and Hanging Rock. 

In district I^o. ninety-six, there lived two women 
named Martin, wives of two brothers. One evening 
intelligence came to them that a courier, conveying 
important dispatches to one of the upper stations, was 
to pass that night along the road, guarded by two 
British officers. They determined to waylay the 
party, and, at the risk of their lives, to obtain posses- 
sion of the papers. For this purpose the two young 
women disguised themselves in their husband's clothes, 
and, being well provided with arms, took their station 
at a point on the road which they knew the escort must 
pass. It was already late, and they had not waited 
long before the tramp of horses was heard in the 
distance. It may be imagined with what anxious 
expectation the heroines awaited the approach of the 
critical moment on which so much depended. Presently 
the courier appeared with his attendant guards. As 
they came close to the spot, the disguised women leaped 
from their covert in the bushes, presented their pistols 
at the officers and demanded the instant surrender of 



7i, Sixteen Years on the Bark Blue Sea, 

the party and their dispatches. The men were taken 
completely by surprise, and in their alarm by the sudden 
attack, yielded a prompt submission. The seeming 
soldiers put them on their parols, and, having taken 
possession of their papers, hastened home by a short 
cut through the forest. It happened, curiously enough, 
that the officers, returning on parole, claimed the hospi- 
tality of these very ladies, and related their mishaps to 
them, without having any suspicion of their conquerors 
and entertainers. 

The history of the world cannot show more per- 
sonal bravery and devotion to country than that dis- 
played by our grandmothers and great-grandmothers. 

Before going any further with this little book, I 
wish to indulge the patience of the reader, for it has 
been written amid the busy cares and toils of the world, 
with no claim to learning. Many of its pages have 
been written after toiling hard all day, and when I 
should have been resting my weary limbs in bed. But 
I have been blessed with a strong constitution, and 
immense power of endurance, and having ever required 
but little sleep. At the present writing I am fifty-two 
years of age, and I suppose I have seen as many hours 
awake as most men have at sixty. Well, dear reader, 
I will drop this miscellaneous, and go ahead with my 
life's history. 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 75 



CHAPTER IV. 

After getting home from my shipwreck ofi* the 
coast of Mexico, I thought I would throw up the sponge 
and not go to sea again, but try and make a living on 
land. I was totally unacquainted with any kind of 
work on shore, and times were slack, and plenty of 
good men were ready to do all the work. 

One day, after I had been home about three weeks, 
I happened down to the wharf, where they were unload- 
ing a cargo of coal. They were short of a hand and 
asked if I wanted a job. I told them yes, and " peeled " 
my garments. I asked what my pay was to be. I was 
told a share of five dollars a ton, to be divided between 
five of us, and that we could make from ^yQ to seven 
dollars per day. So I went to work. This was in the 
latter part of June. The man, whose place I took, did 
not come back, so I stayed until October. Then work 
got slack, and a bark was lying at the wharf at the 
south end, (so called.) I went and saw the captain. 
He told we that he was in want of one more able sea- 
man. So I shipped again for a winter's voyage to the 
West Indies. As soon as we were ready we weighed 
anchor and hoisted sail, and went to New York City, 
took on a cargo of general merchandise, and started for 
our destination. 

After being on our way about a week, one after- 



76 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

noon we spied on the water about half a mile distant, 
what looked like a big raft, but proved to be a monstrous 
sea-turtle. The captain was called and told of it. He 
said, " Boys, let's try and capture him." The mate fixed 
a lasso from a stout one-inch rope, and as soon as we 
got near enough to him, we lowered our boat and six 
men and the mate went to capture him. The mate 
threw the lasso, — the first time he missed him, but the 
second trial was more successful, it falling over his head. 
Then there was a very exciting struggle. The mate 
had taken his rifle with him, and he put a ball through 
its head, which stunned him until we got«aboard the 
ship with our rope, which we made fast to the capstan. 
We all seized the capstan bars and worked with a will 
until we had him on deck. Then, with a sharp axe, we 
beheaded him, and you had better believe there was 
some flouncing by Mr. Turtle. He was a monster ; being 
over twelve feet long and seven feet wide. He was of a 
dark green color. After letting him bleed all night we 
went to work on him in the morning, and with the aid 
of an axe and saw, we separated the meat from the shell, 
and by noon we had a mess cleaned for dinner. The 
cook fried it, and we had a feast. We had turtle soup 
for supper, and the cook salted down the balance. 

In the course of time we reached our destination 
and unloaded our cargo, and got ready to take another 
on board, which consisted of mahogany and logwood 
in the lower hold, and early vegetables and fruits, such 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 77 

as lemons, oranges, onions, potatoes, etc., above. After 
getting all on board, we sailed for I^ew York and 
reached Bedlow's Island on the 15th of March, having 
been gone five months. The next day a tug-boat towed 
us up to the city, where we disposed of our fruits and 
vegetables, and then went to Boston and discharged the 
balance of our cargo. While there I took a run down 
home to see my family. 

Another son having been born to us on February 
22, 1 found my family well and my new son fat and 
saucy. I promised the captain that I would make 
another voyage with him ; and after three happy weeks 
with my family, I received a dispatch to come on. I 
bid my family good-bye again and started for Boston. 

The captain said this trip was to Halifax. We 
experienced considerable rough weather on our voyage, 
but met with no very bad damage, only losing one top 
mast by having it broken by the wind. When we 
reached that port, we found considerable excitement 
prevailing, caused by the fact that a monster devil-fish 
had washed ashore during the late storm. It was the 
largest of its species that history has ever recorded. It 
was eighteen feet across its body, and its powerful ser- 
pentine arms measured twenty-two feet. I will give 
you a brief description of its habits and its home. 

The sepia octopus colossus belongs to the class 

moluska, and the order cephalapoda, so called because 

'the organs of movement are grouped about the head. 



78 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

It is the largest of a numerous family, commonly called 
cuttle-fishy rock-squid^ and properly termed by Montford, 
Diquemar and others, the great polypsus colossal cuttle 
fish, and among seamen called kra-ken, krab-ben, sea 
harven, and in our language, sea devil, or devil fish. 

While the smaller varieties inhabit the sea coast, 
clinging to rocks w^ith two arms — while the others are 
thrown out to catch passing fish, the sea devil, (sepia 
octopus^) takes to mid-ocean, and following the instincts 
of its diminutive cousins, makes its home among the 
rocks and cliffs in the bottom of the sea, where it 
becomes the deadly foe of anything that may pass in 
reach of its powerful serpentine arms — these mon- 
strous weapons, each furnished with a series of exhaust- 
ers, with which it clings with fatal tenacity to its prey, 
likewise become its organs of progression with which it 
can climb the slippery steeps of s-ub-marine cliffs, or with 
a rotary cork-screw like motion of the arms, propel 
itself through and upon the surface of the water with 
great velocity, overtaking even the shark in his mad- 
dest flight. 

Though the rocks of the sea are its favorite home, 
where it rests content as long as its dreadful abode is 
not evaded by passing fish, yet, when driven by hunger, 
it leaves its rocky fastness, and, in the language of 
Montford, " becomes a veritable devil encased in living 
flesh, to prowl the mid-ocean depths." The body, which 
is small in proportion to the spread of its arms, is 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 79 

simply a leathery bag, containing the intestines and 
organs of life — all the issues or vents are grouped near 
the mouth. This mouth is a weapon of so terrible a 
force that a mere glance at it, and the huge sullen eyes 
of the beast at once convinced the observer that it is a 
fierce, ravenous animal. It is not a mouth proper, but 
a bill, parrot-shaped, with strong, sharp, horny edges, 
the lower mandible fitting into the upper. The muscles 
are very strongly developed, and show that its hold is 
deadly, as has indeed been proven by those who have 
seen it seizing and tearing to pieces its prey. 

The eyes are quite round, very prominent, set at 
the sides of the head, and have a malignant, greedy, 
cruel expression, intensified with a gleam of ferocious 
intelligence which is indescribable. The breathing 
apparatus is so constructed that the animal can exist for 
a long time on land, and might, therefore, be called semi- 
amphibious. Indeed, it has been known with nearly 
all its arms or tentacles lost, no doubt in conflict with 
other marine animals, and by the action of waves, 
helplessly cast ashore, and there, beneath a tropical 
sun, and upon the hot sands of the beach, to exist for 
three or four days ; this, likewise, shows its wonderful 
tenacity of life. In fact, it is asserted by many natural- 
ists that the se'pia octopus has three centers of life; 
this, however, has never been clearly proven. 

The inky fluid, sepia, as in the smaller cuttle fish, 
likewise exists in this gigantic monster, and is found in 



80 Sixteen Years on the Bark Blue Sea, 

a little sack or bag in the upper part of the body, and 
held by such ancient philosophers as Aristotle, Pliney, 
Gesner and others, to be the animal's blood. This has 
been clearly disproven by modern naturalists. Some 
diversity, however, still exists as to the animal's use and 
purpose of this inky substance, v^hile such naturalists 
as Tenney, Owen, and Packard claim that it is a pro- 
vision of nature, whereby it throws out an inky cloud, 
under cover of which to escape from its enemies. The 
schools of Cuvier and Agassiz, claim that it darkens 
the water with the contents of the ink or sepia sack for 
the purpose of hiding in this darkness, to entrap its 
prey. The latter is undoubtedly true, as the creature 
knows no fear, and animals of the sea soon learn to 
dread and evade the sight of this horrible creature, and 
to recognize it as a mortal foe. Thus has nature not 
only provided it with the most terrible weapons of 
slaughter, but likewise with the power of producing 
an artificial cloud from which it springs like a living 
trap upon its allured victim. The octopus, as seen 
while in captivity further proves the claim of these 
eminent authorities, for we have observed that when 
hungry it surrounds itself with a sepia cloud, then 
lays motionless until the water above it is disturbed, 
when immediately it springs to the surface of the 
aquarium or tank with its eyes aglow with desperation, 
lunges and flounders about in the most exciting manner, 
as if in pursuit of something to satisfy its cravings. 



Four Years ivith the Army of the Potomac. 81 

Thus you have a description of the hugh monster that 
lay on the sand at Halifax. 

After laying there a few days and getting our top- 
mast repaired, and finding that we could not get a cargo 
to suit us we sailed for Lingan, [N'ova Scotia, and got a 
cargo of coal. Their coal is very soft and combustible, 
and is used principally for steam fire engines. This 
cargo of coal was consigned to Concord, 1^. H., to be 
loaded on the cars at Portsmouth. 

After receiving my pay for this voyage, I again 
went home and found all well and glad to see me. This 
time I remained at home ^yq weeks, and returned to 
Boston to look for another job, which I found in a few 
days. 

I shipped on the full-rigged ship, Paul Jones, Cap- 
tain Ross in charge, and bound for San Francisco, via 
the Horn. The Paul Jones was a staunch vessel and a 
good sailer. We had a crew of twenty-two men, one 
doctor, one ship-carpenter, first and second mate, captain 
and two cooks— making twenty nine all told. Captain 
Eoss was well liked by his men and there was harmony 
among the crew ; not a man tried to shirk from duty. 
They were men every one of them, and it made duty 
more pleasant than it otherwise would have been. We 
met with no incidents worth recording until we reached 
California. 

After holding up there about five weeks we got a 
cargo of merchandise for Japan. We were then des- 



82 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

lined to cross the Pacific ocean. I will try to give you 
a little description of the people and their customs and 
manners. The reader will bear in mind that the com- 
mon sailor has but little opportunity to see the countries 
that he visits, for he is working for monthly wages, and 
there is nearly always something for him to do. There 
are sails to mend, ropes to splice, masts to scrape, decks 
to scrub, his own washing to do ; he has some mending 
and a hundred other things to attend to. I am there- 
fore obliged to draw from history a little. 

Japan, (native name ISTipon, the land of the rising 
sun,) is a very ancient island empire. It is composed 
of a groop of volcanic islands; the whole not much 
larger than the state of ]^ew York. Our knowledge of 
the climate of Japan is yearly increasing. June, July, 
and August are the rainy months. The rain sometimes 
decending in unceasing torrents. October and ITovem- 
ber are the most pleasant and genial months of the 
twelve, when the fine weather can be enjoyed without 
the scorching heat of midsummer. Agriculture is the 
chief occupation of the Japanese. They are very care- 
ful farmers and their farms are models of order and 
neatness. They bestow great care upon manures and 
fertilizing, and thoroughly understand cropping, and the 
rotation of crops. The cultivated land is chiefly a light, 
friable loam, of great fertility. It grows cotton, tea, 
rice and the staple products, such as wheat, maize, 
buckwheat, millet, potatoes, turnips, beans and peas. 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac, 83 

The rice harvest commences in October. Wheat is 
sown in l^ovember and December, and reaped in May 
and June. Flails and winnowing machines similar to 
those used in olden times in the United States are com- 
mon. 

Wild animals scarcely exist in Japan, in conse- 
quence of the universal cultivation of the soil. A few 
wolves, foxes and wild boars still roam in parts of the 
islands. Wild deer are protected by law. The principal 
domestic animals are horses, oxen, cows, — used only as 
beasts of burden, — and dogs are held in superstiti6us 
veneration by the people. Birds are very numerous 
and include two kinds of pheasants ; wild fowls, herons, 
cranes, and many species common both to Europe 
and Asia are found. There are but few reptiles. There 
are some insects, white ants, winged grasshoppers, and 
several beautiful varieties of moth. Japan is very rich 
in minerals, gold, silver, copper; iron and coal are 
found in great abundance. 

Historians differ in regard to the inhabitants. Some 
claim they belong to the same type as the Chinese, others 
claim that they rank as a branch of the Tartars. The 
Japanese are distinguished by an oval head and face, 
rounded frontal bones, high forehead, slightly oblique 
eyes, the iris of which being of a brown black color, 
the eyebrows heavy and arched. The complexion varies 
from a deep copper color to the fairness of western 
nations; but more frequently of a light olive color tint. 



8i, Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

The expression of the face is mild and aminated. The 
Japanese are a people of great qualities and exagerated 
defects. They are honest, ingenious, clever, and frugal, 
animated by a strong love of knowledge, endowed with 
a wonderful capacity of imitation; with deep self 
respect, and with a sense of personal honor, far beyond 
what any other race has ever reached. 

A very peculiar custom of the Japanese is the 
"belly cut." A legalized mode of suicide, made by 
making two cross-cuts on the abdomen with a sharp 
knffe. This custom has been abolished. 

The social position of women is in some respects 
more favorable than in most pagan countries. The 
ladies of Japan, however, live in strict seclusion, and 
very little is known about them. Female education is 
not neglected. Polygamy is not allowed, but the power 
of divorce is permitted to the husband by law. The 
law against adultery on the part of the wife is very 
severe, and death is the penalty, which may be impli- 
cated by the husband ; he, on the contrary, may take as 
many concubines as he pleases or can afiord. The 
marriage ceremony is an important part of social 
etiquette. The families of both bride and bridegroom 
meet and celebrate the event. Prostitution is a legal- 
ized custom, and a father may sell his daughter for this 
purpose for a term of years, — whilst a Japanese 
gentleman, notwithstanding his high notions of honor, 
often chooses his wife from among the inmates of these 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 85 

houses of ill-fame, which are supported and controlled 
by the government. 

The bath is a great institution in Japan, and forms 
a kind of peoples' parliament. It is the general custom 
throughout the country for men and women to bathe 
together with a total absence of decorum. 

In Japan the social position of every man is fixed 
by his birth. And the line separating class from class 
was clearly defined and impassable. Dainsios and Sain- 
sios, privates and soldiers were considered to belong to 
the higher class, and in a lower class were medical men, 
inferior government oflBlciale, merchants, retail dealers, 
and laborers. There were eight classes of society, half 
of which belonged to the upper class and the other half 
to the lower class. As to the rank of society, men of 
rank could only enter a city on horse-back ; but these 
distinctions have been greatly modified. The ordinary 
vehicle in Japan is the common sort, made of bamboo 
and is called a congo. The better kind are made of 
lacquered wood. 

The Japanese manifest great regard for their dead. 
In a Japanese cemetery the solid and elaborately carved 
granite monuments are beautiful specimens of archi- 
tectural taste. Each body is buried in a sitting posture, 
with the hands folded in an attitude of devotion, and 
the coffins are all circular. 

The Japanese observe many holidays and celebrate 
the opening of the year in the Chinese fashion. There 



86 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

are also many holidays of religious character. But the 
great national festivals are five in number. The J apan- 
ese are a theater loving people and inveterate gamblers. 
They delight in wrestling. Their national sports are 
performing wonderful feats in spinning tops and jug- 
gling. Fish and rice are the staple food of these people, 
and tea and sac, (a spirit distilled from rice,) their bev- 
erage. 

One thing more and then I am done with Japan. 
Just stop for a moment and consider what resources 
Japan must have, with a territory of only a few square 
miles larger than the State of JSTew York, and whose 
ports have been open to the commerce of the world 
only a few short years. Yet she supports, and supports 
handsomely, too, more than thirty-three million of 
people. Japan is indeed a wonderful country. 

After laying in port at Japan for nearly four 
months, having disposed of our cargo and taken on 
another consisting of tea and some silk and manufac- 
tured goods, we set sail for San Francisco. After being 
out about five days one of our crew was taken sick with 
something like the cholera ; and all that the doctor could 
do he failed, and on the third day of his sickness he 
died. His name was John Gritchell, and he belonged 
somewhere in Massachusetts. 

After preparing his body for the deep, we com- 
mitted it to its long resting place. Some people think 
that most sailors are heathenish, and tumble their dead 



Four Years with the Army of the PotomaCy 87 

into the sea without ceremony. This, as a rule, is 
untrue ; they have a burial service, and a beautiful one, 
too. The body is wrapped in canvas and sewed up, then 
the outside is well tarred. A heavy weight is then 
attached, such as a piece of iron or coal. A plank is 
then laid on the railing on which we place the body. 
The officers and crew gather around and the captain 
usually reads the 14th chapter of job, which commences 
like this : " Man born of woman is of few days and 
full of trouble : he cometh forth like a flower and is 
cut down," etc. Then the captain, if he is a praying 
man, offers a short prayer; if not, we all repeat the 
Lord's prayer ; after which we say, " John, we commit 
your body to the deep, there may you rest in peace until 
Gabriel blows his trumpet and the sea gives up her 
dead, and may God have mercy on your soul.'' We then 
slide him down the plank into the sea. As soon as it 
starts we sing " Nearer my God to Thee." This closes 
our sad funeral service. Sad, not only because we have 
lost one of our number, but because he is far from home 
and dear friends ; sad, because we do not know who 
will be the next to follow the plank into the deep sea. 
The remainder of our voyage was made with but few 
events occurring. 

Having written several letters home while in Japan, 
I found answers to them when I arrived in San Fran- 
cisco. One of recent date informed me that all were 
well at home, and that they were getting along fine, but 



88 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

was anxious for me to come home again. After laying 
in port two weeks and getting out our cargo, the cap- 
tain informed us that he had been made an offer for a 
trip to Queensland, Australia, and had it under consid- 
eration. I wanted to get home, and thought I would 
stay there awhile and take my chances for a job to reach 
some of the eastern ports, and if I could not do that I 
would go overland. I was paid off and remained two 
weeks longer, but no chance " turned up " for an eastern 
trip, but plenty of them for foreign ports. I had 
almost made up my mind to return home by rail, but 
didn't like to pay out my hard earned wages for car fare. 
I strolled out one morning among the shipping officers, 
I found no chance for home, but found a job on a steam 
yacht as assistant steward, for a trip to the Holy Land, 
to be gone four or five months with a pleasure party. 
My pay was to be twenty-eight dollars per month, and 
I was to eat aft. As I never had a " soft snap " on 
board a ship offered me before, I accepted the birth, as 
I knew the duties of a steward. 

We were ready to start in about ten days with a 
crew of seventeen men and one hundred and five pass- 
engers. We got up steam and sails and put out into 
San Francisco Bay, and went by the island of Quintain, 
where the State prison was located. In a few weeks 
we passed through the Straits of Gibraltar into the 
Mediterranean Sea, — so named from its being entirely 
enclosed by the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa. 



JFour Years with the Army of the Potomac. 89 

It is one of the greatest inland seas in the world. The 
depth of this sea is generally greatest in its western 
basins. In many places it is 3000 feet deep. ISTear 
Nice it is 4200 feet deep at a distance of only a few 
yards from the shore. In many places it is 5000 feet 
deep and more. In the Straits of Gibralter it is about 
5500 feet deep. Different parts of the Mediterranean 
Sea bear different names; as the Egean Sea, the Ionian 
Sea, the Adriatic Sea or Gulf of Venice. 

Of the 643 species of European sea lishes, 444 are 
found to inhabit the Mediterranean Sea. It is also rich 
in red coral, which is found in great quantities on the 
coast of the Balearic Isles and Sicily. We sailed up 
the Mediterranean Sea and landed on the Isle of Pat- 
mas, (the banished home of John,) a bare and rocky 
island in the Egean Sea, about forty-five miles in cir- 
cumference. Although there is now but one palm tree 
on the whole island it is still a celebrated place, because 
the apostle was there exiled, and there where he saw 
the visions recorded in the book of Revelations. On 
the top of a mountain stands the famous monastery of 
John the Divine; half way up to which a cane is 
pointed out to the traveler, by which, according to tra- 
dition, the apostle received his revelations. Many of 
the passengers actually got down and kissed the ground. 
I presume they thought they were nearer heaven there 
than when in the United States. 

After stopping on the island a couple of days, we 



90 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

steered our way to Joppa. It is situated on the coast 
of Syria about thirty-three miles northwest of Jerusa- 
lem. Here we anchored, the passengers visited Pales- 
tine. As my duty was then light, and having been there 
a couple of weeks, I got permission to go up to Jerusa- 
lem. I struck up a bargain with an Arab to take me to 
Jerusalem and back on his camel for two dollars and a 
half in our money. He tried hard to get me to pay him 
the full amont while there, but as a general thing they 
are a thievish set and I would not pay him but one 
dollar and a quarter there and told him I would pay the 
rest when we got back. I remained a week in the city, 
visiting the ancient places of interest. It would take up 
too much space to give a description of that city, — those 
of you who are familiar with the bible already have a 
fair description. 

We stopped about ten weeks in Joppa. When our 
passengers all got back we sailed to Home and Venice, 
a distance of about three hundred miles; we also stopped 
at quite a number of other places along the coast of 
Europe. After the party had seen all they cared to, we 
set sail for home. We reached home in safety, having 
been gone a little over seven months. 

I was now getting a little home-sick, and wanted 
to see my wife and children. I therefore wasted but 
little time in getting started, I went home via the Union 
Pacific Eailroad to Council Bluffs, la. It was in ISTovem- 
ber, and there came a fearful snow storm and blocked 



Four Years iDith the Army of the Potomac. 91 

the railroad ; we lay snow-bound five days at Council 
Bluffs. But all things must have an end,' so did the 
snow storm, and we again started, and a few days more 
found me at home again with my family, having been 
gone fourteen months. I concluded to remain home the 
balance of the winter, I did so, and all that I could do 
was to loaf around the stores and smoke my pipe, (for 
I had learned to be an inveterate smoker,) and tell 
sailor's ''yarns," at which I had got to be rather expert, 
and indeed, I always had a pretty good audience to hear 
what I had to say. 



CHAPTER V. 

As the title of my book hints at escapes, adventures 
and accidents on land and sea, I will tell of some of the 
mishaps of my life. 

In the first place, in my childhood I had about all 
the difierent diseases that childhood is heir to. When 
about seven years old, I went in swimming and got into 
a deep hole and came near drowning, so near that they 
had to roll me on a barrel to get the water out of me. 

When about twelve years of age, I fell off a school 
seat and broke my left arm in two places, and after it 
had almost healed, I fell down the bank of the Kenne- 
bec and broke it again. 



92 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

At about fourteen years of age I went fishing with 
my oldest brother. We were fishing away, I having 
the line wound around my hand and was on my knees 
in the bottom of the boat. I got a " bite " and then a 
" pull," and the first thing I knew I was overboard. I 
could not clear myself from the line and when I came 
to the surface was more dead than alive, my brother 
grabbed me by the seat of my pants and hauled me on 
board. He took a turn at the line and got it ofi* my 
hand. We then pulled the fish up to the surface where 
I held him as long as I could and my brother beat him 
over the head with the boat hook. Then we let him 
run out the length of the line, then hauled him up 
again and pounded him some more. After ^ve or six 
trials we succeeded in killing him. We could not get 
him into the boat, so we made him fast and towed him 
in, — we were then nine miles from home. He proved 
to be a chicken halibut, and weighed three hundred 
and nineteen pounds. 

In a few months after this I was helping repair the 
tower of a house, I was in the act of taking up a board, 
when the wind struck it and blew me ofi", twenty-nine 
feet to the ground. It was sandy and did not break any 
bones but gave me a terrible shaking up ; it hurt my 
back, and drove a tooth through my tongue. 

After going into the army I received a slight 
wound at the battle of Gettysburg. At the battle of 
Chancellorsville, was hit with a piece of shell, and 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac, 93 

slightly wounded. After the battle of Gettysburg our 
regiment was put on guard of the supply train. We 
were attacked by Mosby's guerrillas and had a hand-to- 
hand fight, I was struck on the top of the head with a 
saber, receiving a cut ^yq and a half inches long, and 
fracturing my skull, which laid me out for a while. 
The doctors tampooned and dressed my wound ; I was 
off duty for quite a while. As I have already related, 
at Cold Harbor, on the 3rd day of June, 1864, in a 
charge on a rebel battery, I was struck by a minnie ball, 
which passed through my head back of the ears. This 
happened as near as I could find out between two and 
three o'clock; we made three charges, it was in the 
second one that I was wounded, in the third charge I 
was told the boys took the battery and after spiking the 
guns, fell back to their breast works, leaving their dead 
and wounded on the field of carnage. About seven 
o'clock our boys got a flag of truce granted them to go 
and pick up their wounded and bury their dead. I had 
a brother in Berdan's sharpshooters, and he came over 
to our regiment to see if I got out of the fight. He 
found they all thought I was killed, so he said he would 
try to find me and have my body embalmed and 
returned home. When he found me I was still alive 
and he took me into our lines and to the hospital tent, 
where the surgeon made a hasty examination of me 
and told my brother that I could not possibly live until 
morning; so I was laid on the grass outside the tent 



9Jf, Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

and a blanket thrown over me to wait until I died. In 
the morning my brother came with an ambulance 
wagon to take me to City Point to be embalmed, but 
when they uncovered me they found me still alive. 
The doctor exclaimed : " My God, that man is still 
alive, take him into the tent and let us try and do some- 
thing for him." So I was taken up tenderly and carried 
into the tent and laid on a cot, my wounds were sponged 
out, some brandy given me, and I was as well cared for 
as possible. After laying in the field hospital a few 
days I was taken to City Point, and in a few days more 
on to Washington, D. C. In about twenty-three days 
I came to myself again and began to slowly improve. 
After remaining in Washington a few weeks, I was 
again moved to Beverly, IS". J., and stayed there until 
IsTovember. I then got a fifteen days' furlough and 
went home. I was next sent back to my regiment, then 
laying in front of Petersburg; my wounds not entirely 
healed ; I could with difficulty hear the loudest talk. 

I shall always think that I was sent back to the 
ranks for spite, because I would not do duty at the hos- 
pital. I told them there, that I was there for treatment 
and not for duty. When I got back to the regiment 
the colonel asked me why I came back there, as I was 
not fit for duty. When I told him, he gave them a 
cursing and said they would be sending dead men back 
soon. However, I stayed with them until the close of 
the war, and was in several engagements after that, 
including Appommatox and Deer Roads. 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac, 95 

I was very near death's door with my last wound, 
and only for a wonderful strong constitution I would 
not now be writing this narrative. I have also met 
other disasters of which I will speak further on. I 
have said but little of ray boyhood days. 

I was of a roving disposition from early childhood. 
I loved to roam about, fish and hunt, and there was not 
a place in woods or field for twenty miles about that I 
did not know as well as our little farm. I had a kind 
mother who always had our welfare at heart; and had 
I been a better boy, prayed more and heeded her advice, 
I no doubt would have been better ofl' to-day. Peace 
be to her ashes. I hope to meet her on the other shore, 
for I loved my mother and know that she loved me. 
She praised me when I did right and reprimanded me 
when I did wrong. My boyhood days were compara- 
tively short, for I went forth to do duty as a man before 
I was fifteen years old. My care has cost no man any- 
thing since. 

The following is a little piece of poetry that now 
comes to my mind. I give it here because it strikes 
my fancy of my boyhood days. I can not tell you the 
author, but give it anyhow. 

OH, FOR THE DAYS GONE BY ! 

Oh, would I were a boy again to roam about the fields. 
Collecting all the wondrous things indulgent nature yields; 
To climb the neighbor's apple trees and rob him of his fruit; 



96 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

To go on trips nocturnal his strawberry beds to loot ; 

To play pranks on the miller, and to put school teachers through 

A lovely course of bitter sprouts, as only boys can do. 

I'd like to visit grocery stores and make my pockets bulge 
With raisins hooked and stolen figs my stomach to indulge; 
Steal cherries from the parsonage, rape pantries of their pie, 
And seem when caught, as innocent as angles in the sky. 
I'd like to sneak in candy shops and ** lift" an ounce or two 
Of taffy and of peppermint, as only boys can do. 

I'd like to take a huge bent pin and put it on the chair 

Of any aged relative who chanced to have gray hair. 

I'd like to take an old jack-knife and carve up doors and trees. 

And not remember anything whose memory failed to please. 

I'd like to have the old regard for statements plain and true — 

In fact to treat the solemn truth as only boys can do. 

Oh, for a try at youth once more! Oh, for the days gone by! 
If time would only turn about, and let me backward fly 
For but one year into my youth, when crime was only play. 
And all the wicked things I did were but my boyish way ! 
Oh, for one chance to treat some men I would I never knew 
To deeds that with impunity none but a boy can do. 

As I have seen the folly of misspent moments, 
allow me to give my young reader a little advice. 
Improve your moments; life is short and do not fritter 
away your time in vain belief that you must have 
unlimited and unemployed time. In order to become 
well educated and well informed, you must improve the 
opportunities of your early life. The plough boy 
found time for books, though engaged in arduous toil. 



Four Years loith the Army of the Potomac. 97 

Cherish the moments as they run. Cultivate habits of 
thought and contemplation. Read little and think 
much, rather than read much and think little. It is 
better to carefully read an hour a day that to skim for 
a week. Go over and over your pages or paragraphs 
until you have made the writer's thoughts your own. 
It is not enough that you can call the exact words 
before your eyes, you should have the sentiment in 
your soul. The boys and girls of to-day should be 
taught to be ambitious to excel, to fit themselves for 
the best places. This can only be done by concentra- 
tion of purpose, and application in whatever is under- 
taken. Application of the rules of composition will 
lead to correct form of speech. Be careful then how 
you adhere to or imitate rude and vulgar forms of 
speech. Good strong, common sense language marks 
the well educated man or woman. A prominent edu- 
cator estimates that a half hour a day given to the 
study of history, science or literature, would be three 
hours a week, more than twelve hours a month, and 
more than twelve solid days of twenty-four hours each 
year. Just think of this and estimate how many half 
hours you are spending in mere idleness, that might 
profitably be given to the cultivation of your mind for 
a noble purpose. 



I will now go back to the history of my sea faring. 
After the voyage to the Holy Land I remained at home 



98 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

through the winter. My money was getting short, 
except a little that I had laid up for a '^ rainy day." 
So I thought I would have to try the sea again as there 
was nothing that I could find to do at home. I went 
to Boston looking for a job, but failed. I then went 
to J^Tew York City and shipped on a barkerteen for a 
general trading voyage. 

In a few days we started for South America, and 
touched at Cuba, and San Domingo, and from there to 
Porto Rico, Buenos Ayers, Chili, Valparaiso and Argen- 
tine Eepublic. We sold out our goods and loaded again 
with hides at Buenos Ayers and started for home. On 
our way home one of our shipmates and I planned to 
buy some "green goods" when we arrived in ISTew 
York City. Having -heard of their tricks we thought 
we were as smart as they, and could beat them at their 
own game. We had about ^ve hundred dollars between 
us. We got permission to go ashore, so we started to 
hunt up our man, having the address in our pocket. 
Before entering we went into a saloon close by and 
held a council over a stiff glass of whiskey. It was 
decided that I should try my luck in fooling the '' green 
goods" man. To make the reader acquainted with the 
trick, I will state that they have things arranged to 
suit their own convenience. There are always two 
men together. They have two rooms with a closet 
opening into each room. One man keeps hid while the 
other makes the trade. They have plenty of good 



Four Years loith the Army of the Potomac. 99 

greenbacks to show you and offer them to you, two for 
one. After some dickering he concluded to let me 
have thirteen hundred dollars for my five hundred dol- 
lars. A bargain was thus made and he counted out the 
thirteen hundred dollars and put it in a small grip, and 
took my five hundred dollars and put it in his pocket. 
Just then a rap was heard at the door and the man said 
in a hurried voice, that it might be a detective ; accord- 
ingly he took my grip and quickly put it in the closet, 
and went out to see who was there. As soon as the 
door closed on him I opened the door of the closet and 
seeing another grip in there I changed places with them 
and gently closed the door again, and waited for my 
man to come in again which he did very soon. He 
then opened the closet door and gave me the same grip 
that he had put in. After giving me some good advice 
about being careful he bid me good-bye, and I left. I 
was met in the entry by another man, who tried to stop 
me but I showed him a little gun and he let me pass. 
I hurried down stairs and out on the street eight hun- 
dred dollars better off* than when I went in. It is their 
game to substitute a grip full of paper, in the place of 
the one they count out for you, but he got beat at his 
own game that time. After getting down to our ship 
we divided the money and had six hundred and fifty 
dollars apiece. 

After receiving my pay and laying off for about 
fifteen days which I spent with my family, I joined a 



100 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

crew bound for the South Sea Islands to get a load of 
cotton. This island being one of the 'New Zealand 
group. On our way out we met with trade winds and 
one severe wind storm which came very near casting 
us away. We finally reached port and unloaded. After 
loading up with cotton we once more started for home. 
This voyage lasted about five months. It was October 
when we got back and I thought I would rest through 
the winter, for the life of a sailor is laborious as well 
as dangerous. 

Many of my readers may wonder why I did not 
learn more of the languages of the people that I have 
come in contact with. It is simply for the reason I 
never tried. I did pick up a little French, but as I 
couldn't speak my own mother tongue properly, I 
thought I would not try to speak other languages. 
The least learned are aware that there are many lan- 
guages in the world, but the actual number is probably 
beyond the dreams of ordinary people. The geogra- 
pher Balbi enumerated eight hundred and sixty which 
are entitled to be considered as distinct languages, and 
five thousand which may be regarded as dialects. 
Adulguns, another modern writer on this subject, 
reckons up three thousand and sixty four languages and 
dialects existing, and which have existed. Even after 
we have allowed either of these as the number of lan- 
guages, we must acknowledge the existence of almost 
infinite minor diversities; for almost every province 



Four Years luith the Army of the Potomac. 101 

has a tongue more or less peculiar, and this we may 
well helieve to be the case throughout the world at 
large. It is said there are little islands lying close 
together in the South Sea, the inhabitants of which do 
not understand each other. Of the 860 distinct lan- 
guages enumerated by Balbi, 53 belong to Europe, 114 
to Africa, 123 to Asia, 417 to America, 117 to Ocean- 
ica — by which term he distinguishes the vast number 
of islands stretching between Hindostan and South 
America. 

There is another little incidence that I saw w^hile 
on our voyage up the Mediterranean, and that is sponge 
gathering. The ship starts out prepared to gather 
sponges, and sails to the place where they are to be 
found, and drops anchor. They have boats built wide 
and shallow. The men go in these shallow boats to 
gather sponges. They have a pair of tongs attached 
to a long pole ; these tongs will open large enough to 
take in a half bushel measure. They have a pail with 
a glass fitted into the bottom of it. They put this pail 
into the water and look down into the sea. When they 
see a sponge they run down this pole and grab hold of 
the sponge, and bring it on board. One writer claims 
that sponges are the most truly manifold in form of 
any animal. They are of all sizes, shapes and colors. 
Some branch out like trees, many resemble a funnel or 
trumpet, others are divided into lobes, like great fingers. 
Some are known by the name of sea muffs and sea 



102 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

tapers, on account of. their form. A closely allied 
variety produce regular sponge monuments, which 
grow from three to six feet high on the submarine 
rocks. They have a narrow stalk, which at a certain 
heighth expands considerably and gives the structure 
the appearance of a cup, symmetrically hollowed out 
and exactly like an immense drinking goblet. To such 
a collossal structure the imagination of the sailor could 
give but one name, that of the supreme God of the sea. 
This living vase is the cup of Neptune. Some of the 
sponges found in the Mediterranean are as fine as silk, 
others are coarse and worth but little. It is quite a 
sight to see them gather these sponges. 

DEAD BODIES ON SHIP BOARD. 

A dead body on a ship is still considered to be a 
magnet which attracts calamity. This belief is not 
only shared by those who go before the mast, but exer- 
cises great influence among captains of our ocean 
palaces. So prevalent is this base superstition, that 
when a passenger dies at sea, it is entirely discretionary 
with the captain whether the body be kept on board 
and carried to its destination, or immediately committed 
to the waves. 

Eecent as the summer of 1878, a case illustrating 
this dread of dead bodies on shipboard was developed 
under the following circumstances : 

A gentleman in the last stages of consumption, 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 103 

engaged a passage with his his wife on one of our finest 
ocean steamers from Liverpool to ]^ew York, — this 
country being his home. When in mid-ocean the 
patient was seized with a hemorrhage which speedily 
terminated his life. Ministering friends at once pre- 
pared the body at the widow's solicitation, by embalm- 
ing it, for the remainder of the journey. Scarcely had 
this been done when the captain learned of the circum- 
stance, and immediately ordered it cast overboard. 
The widow was shocked at tbis outrageous command. 
Her protestations availed nothing. Being very wealthy 
she offered the captain a large sum of money to allow 
the body to remain ; and then with cries and heart- 
broken entreaties, begged that she might keep her dead 
and consign it to the precious earth beside her children. 
The captain was inexorable and even used some force 
in seizing the dead body and casting it into the waves. 
This officer was hardly so brutal as he appeared, for he 
was really actuated by a superstitious fear that, if the 
body was allowed to remain on board some dreadful 
calamity would befall the ship. 

Seamen are very peculiar in their superstition. 
They think that if a shark follows a ship, sonae one on 
board will die before the end of the journey ; when 
really the shark is only after the scrapings that the cook 
throws away. I might mention many other things just 
as foolish as these, that seamen and officers conscien- 
tiously believe in ; men with good, sound sense and 
judgment, on most anything else. 



lOJf Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

I have mentioned these incidents of superstition, 
to show you how peculiar a great many are who go 
down to the sea in ships. But then we have many just 
as curious people on land, and all you have to do is to 
cast about you a little and you can find them every day. 



After returning from my trip to the Holy Land in 
1873, I spent the winter with my family at home. In 
April my wife presented me with a girl baby, thus 
making four children ; three boys and one girl. I now 
looked about me, for another chance to go to sea. I 
heard of a ship in Portland, Maine that wanted a crew 
to go to Eio de Janeiro. As the ship had the name of 
being haunted, it was hard to get a crew, I took advan- 
tage of this to get good wages. I had the captain 
belive I was mortally afraid of ghosts. However, I 
will say that I never took any stock in ghosts or hob- 
goblins of any kind, and yet I have seen things, in my 
time that I could not exactly account for. Oftentimes 
they would make the hair stand on end. In a few days 
the crew was complete ; made up of good seamen to 
man the ship. We sailed to Boston and took on our 
cargo, and sailed out for our destination, to get a load 
of coffee. 

Eio de Janeiro, commonly called Rio, is the capi- 
tal of the Brazillian Empire, and is the largest and 
most important commercial emporium of South Amer- 
ica. It is situated on a magnifiicent harbor seventy-five 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac, 105 

miles west of Cape Frio. The harbor or bay of Rio 
de Janeiro, is said, (and that with justice too,) to be 
the most beautiful and spacious in the world. It is 
almost landlocked ; being entered from the south by a 
passage about a mile in width. It extends inland 
seventeen miles, and has a breadth of about twelve 
miles. Of its numerous islands. Governor's Island, is 
six miles long. The entrance to this bay, guarded on 
either side by granite mountains, is very deep, and is 
so safe, that the harbor is made without the use of 
pilots. On the left of the entrance rises the peak called 
from its peculiar shape, Sugar Loaf Mountain. All 
around the bay the blue waters are girdled with moun- 
tains and lofty peaks, of every variety of picturesque 
and fantastic outline. The harbor is protected by a 
number of fortresses. 

The city stands on the west shore of the bay, about 
four miles from its mouth. Seven green and mound- 
like hills diversify its side, and the white walled and 
Vermillion like roofed houses, cluster in the intervening 
valleys, and climb the eminences in long lines. From 
the center part part of the city, lines of houses extend 
four miles in three principal directions. The old town 
nearest the bay is laid out in squares, the streets cross- 
ing at right angles, are narrow, and are paved and 
flagged. The houses, often built of granite, are com- 
monly two stories high. West of this is the elegantly 
built new part of the town. The two districts are sep- 



106 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

arated by the Campode Santa Anna, an immense square 
or park, on different parts of which stand extensive gar- 
risons. The Town Hall, the National Museum, the 
Palace of the Senate, the Foreign office, a large opera 
house, etc., are here located. 

From a number of springs on and around Mount 
Corcovado, three thousand feet high and situated three 
and a half miles southwest of the city, the water is 
conveyed by means of an immense aqueduct, and sup- 
plies the fountains with which the numerous squares 
are furnished. Most of the streets are lighted with gas, 
and commodious wharfs and quays are built along the 
water's edge. 

Rio de Janeiro contains several fine hospitals and 
infirmaries ; asylums for foundlings ; fifty chapels and 
churches, finely constructed and costly. The trade and 
commerce of E-io de Janeiro consists of coffee, cocoa, 
gold, diamonds, tobacco, hides, cotton, timber, sugar, 
rum, horse-hair, India rubber and wool. The popula- 
tion is 450,000. At the proclamation of independence 
in 1822, Rio de Janeiro became the capital of the 
empire. 

After getting out our freight, we again loaded with 
a mixed cargo, consisting of coffee, cocoa, sugar, rum, 
hides and wool, and some India rubber, in the lower 
hold. I stated that the ship was said to be haunted, and 
for a few days after we set sail, there was an unearthly 
noise heard up in the rigging of the ship near the main 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 107 

cross-tree that could not be accounted for. One day I 
asked permission to go aloft and find out, if I could, what 
caused the noise. The captain was somewhat scared 
himself and would not at first consent. After awhile 
he gave me permission to go aloft and see what the 
trouble was up there. I did so, and in less than fifteen 
minutes I found the ghost and fixed him so he could 
not groan again. A rope , had got twisted around 
another, and when the wind was in a certain direction 
they would rub together and cause the noise that had 
been scaring poor ''Jack " out of his wits, and making 
the ship owners pay almost double Avages. Such is life. 

I have already dwelt somewhat at length on Rio de 
Janeiro, but I was somewhat struck with the place and 
country. It being very productive, I would like to have 
remained there and spent the balance of my days, only 
for the reason of the excessive heat in summer. 

We reached I^ew York again in due course of time, 
after having a very pleasant voyage. This being Sep- 
tember, I again went home. I had spent most of two 
winters idling, and I found that winter would consume 
all that summer could yield ; so I come to the conclusion 
to make a winter's voyage. I went to Boston and found 
no work ; from there to N'ew York, and then to Balti- 
more, where I struck a ship fitting for the Canary 
Islands to get a load of guano. As we went under bal- 
last, it only took a few days to get ready to start. 

We met with some very rough weather on our way 



108 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

out. It would be useless to dwell upon a description of 
these islands ; but suffice it to say, there are millions 
and millions of birds that winter there, and thousands 
die there. It is their carcasses and the deposits of these 
fowls that we were after — to be used as a fertilizer — and 
is called guano. This guano is put in bags and shipped 
to the United States and England. Thousands of tons 
are carried away from these islands every year. The 
islands are owned and operated by capitalists from the 
United States, England, France and Germany. We 
got our load all right and returned to ]^ew York in 
April, 1874. We were then to lay by for a month for 
repairs. 

Reader, let me say to you that sailoring is a hard 
life. Man has to be made of an iron constitution to 
stand the rough weather and still rougher fare ; for our 
food is none of the best, and in many cases not enough 
of that. You will hear sailors say, and declare to God, 
that if they ever get on shore again it would be their 
last voyage to sea. As soon as they get ashore they 
" blow in " their money in drinking and riotous living; 
then, as they think they cannot make money at any- 
thing else (and a great many of them cannot), they are 
again ready to try the sea. Many of them are " taken 
in " by land sharks and robbed of their money, so they 
go to sea again and again until old age overtakes them, 
they can no longer earn a living by work, and frequently 
the poor-house is the last home of a sailor. These 



Four Years loith the Army of the Potomac. 109 

poor-houses are provided by the sailors themselves. 
They pay about seven dollars a year as long as they are 
sailors. I paid my assessments for thirteen years, so 
you see I am entitled to the home of a sailor's " snug 
harbor." 

More than likely this little narrative will be read 
by many who have never seen a ship ; I will therefore 
tell you the different parts of a full rigged ship. Spars, 
etc. :^mast, top mast, gallant mast, royal mast, yard, 
tap sail, top gallant sail yard, royal yard, tuck, bow sprit, 
gibboom, flying gibboom, martingale chain, top cap cross 
tree, top mast cap, spanker-boom. Sails:— main sail, 
top sail, top gallant yard sail, royal spanker. Standard 
rigging :— shoals, top mast shoals, stay, top mast stay, 
top gallant mast stay, royal stay, top mast back stay, 
royal back stay, flying gibboom stay, martingale stay, 
gibboom. martingale stay, bob stay. Running rigging : 
—lifts, top sail lifts, top gallant sail lifts, royal lifts, 
braces, top sail braces, top gallant sail braces, royal 
braces, signal halyards, gib stay, flying gib stay, sheet, 
peak halyard, topping lifts, spanker sheet. 

These compose all the principal parts of a full 
rigged ship. Of course these are all above the deck. 
Then on deck we have capstan for hoisting the anchor, 
and other things, such as hauling the ship to wharf. 
In difierent classes of ships slight modifications occur 
in the rigging, to suit particular circumstances. But 
the main principles of rigging are as detailed above. 



no Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

The question is often asked, how many ropes has a full 
rigged ship ? Of course hut few can answer this. She 
has but two ropes as known by that name. One is the 
bucket rope, the other the fender rope. All others have 
different names, as you will see by looking over the list 
above. 

JSTow to return ;— after resting for a mouth or so, 
I accepted a job on a three mast schooner which was 
coasting between ports of the United States. We sailed 
from Boet to Bangor, Me., and got a load of lumber 
and returned. Thus we sailed from one port to another 
until ]^ovember, when we took a load of coal to Ports- 
mouth, l!T. H., at which place we laid up for the winter. 
I could not well lay idle, so I got a job in a shipyard 
that winter. The weather was so severe that we could 
not work more than half the time. But I managed to 
earn enough to pay my rent and keep my family. 

March, 1875, has come at last and the cold spell of 
the previous winter is broken. I must now look out 
for another job, for I have six mouths to feed, six backs 
to clothe, and I want my children to go to school and 
wear respectable clothing. In order to do so I must 
keep at work. As the martyred President would say, 
" keep pegging away." After making ample provisions 
for my family, I bid them good-by and went to New 
York City. I soon found a job on a bark for a general 
trading voyage in foreign ports. While on this voyage 
I met with an incident that came very near costing me 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. Ill 

my life. But for kind Providence I would not now be 
writing this little book. I had a fearful combat with a 
shark, but was rescued by my captain. 

We were about two days out from Liverpool, Eng., 
with a cargo of salt for one of the southern ports of 
the United States. It being the 19th day of July we 
struck a dead calm which lasted for several days. One 
evening after a tremendous hot day, some one proposed 
a swim. As most of the crew were good swimmers 
we stripped and lowered a boat, and then climbed down 
into it, and then jumped into the water. We had 
been bathing but a few minutes when a blood-curdling 
cry from the deck announced that a shark was bearing 
down upon us. The captain immediately rushed down 
into the cabin for his rifle to shoot him if he could. 
The shark came up within three feet of where I was 
and made for me. I gave one mighty spring and got 
away from him about six feet, when a sharp report 
rang out from the captain^s rifle, sending a ball through 
the shark's head. This did not prove fatal, but stunned 
him considerably and gave me one more chance for my 
life, which I improved to the best advantage I could. 
The shark seemed to gain consciousness again and 
made another surge at another man who was a little 
nearer than I. This gave me time to gain the boat. 
In the meantime the captain had reloaded his gun, and 
was watching his chance of again shooting him. He 
soon got an opportunity, but this time the ball entered 



11^ Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea 



his body, thus doing no very serious harm. It how- 
ever, gave the sailors time to gain the boat. The boys 
on the ship had lowered another boat, and armed with 
knives and other weapons, they gave battle to Mr. 
Shark, who seemed anxious to make a meal of one of 
our crew. After shooting and knifing him we got him 
so near killed that a rope was placed around him, and 
fastening it around the capstan we hauled him on board 
the deck. By this time the shark had gained enough 
life to make it real interesting. Another shot from 
the captain's rifle ended the combat. He was about 
fifteen feet long, and as thick as a half barrel, and I 
should judge weighed about a thousand pounds. We 
had all the sea bathing we cared for on that voyage. 
A breeze sprang up and filled our sails and we were 
again on the move. In the course of time we reached 
Savannah, Ga. We unloaded our cargo and reloaded 
with cotton for Liverpool and set sail. 
V There were two men in our crew who had a dislike 
for each other. They spent most of their time in 
quarreling, and would often come to blows. The rest 
of us got tired of their noise, and we told them that 
unless they stopped it we would report them to the cap- 
tain. This seemed to have no eflect on them, so after 
a few days we told the captain that we could stand it no 
longer, and if it was not stopped we would leave the 
ship as soon as we reached Liverpool. He told us to 
keep quiet and say nothing more to them, but the next 



Four Years ivith the Army of the Potomac. IIS 

time they got to quarreling, to call him and he would 
attend to their case. In a few days they were at it again 
hot and heavy. We reported to the captain and told 
him what was up. He came on deck. and called the two 
men together, and ordered them to go and get a tool- 
chest that stood aft, and fetch it midship. He then 
ordered the crew to lash the two men to the chest, facing 
each other. After this was done he stood over them 
with a rope and made them fight. Every time they 
stopped he gave them a cut with the rope. This chest 
was about four feet long, two feet high and two feet in 
width, and they were strapped down fast to it, so they 
could only move their bodies and arms. They fought 
for about thirty minutes, when they began to want to 
quit. After promising not to fight again, the captain 
had them untied and told them to go and bathe their 
faces, and if he heard any more of their quarreling he 
would put them in irons and order them arrested, as 
soon as they reached port, for mutiny This had the 
desired effect and we heard no more quarreling from 
them. Upon arriving at Liverpool they got the ^'G. B.'' 
and we shipped two Englishmen in their places. We 
got out our cargo and took on another of salt, and set 
sail for l^tw York. 

We had it very rough all the way over on this trip. 
When about three days out I was taken sick with 
the typhoid fever, I tried to work it off, but to no pur- 
pose, I kept getting worse every day. The captain was 



ii^ Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

very kind and did all he could for me, but I was very- 
sick ; it being very rough, I rolled from one side of my 
bunk to the other day and night till we reached New 
York. I was then sent to the seaman's hospital, and in 
three weeks was able to start for home, although very 
weak. 

I found my family well. I thought I would stay at 
home that winter and gain strength. In January of 
1876, another son was born to us. I remained home 
until April, when I got a job on one of the Reading 
coal and iron steamers as oiler ; she was to ply between 
Port Richmond, Pa., and Portsmouth, 1^. H., so I moved 
my family to Portsmouth. 

The Centennial Exposition opened on the tenth of 
May, and as I had nothing to do with the loading or 
unloading, I used to go and see the show; I put in ten 
days during the summer sight-seeing. Everything went 
smoothly that summer and we got our pay regular, but 
the work was very hard to all the crew. My duty was to 
keep the machinery oiled, and to make myself useful in 
general in the engine room. I always found plenty to 
do, as the coal dust was always flying and kept every- 
thing dirty. In November we pulled in for the winter. 

I found it had taken nearly all my summer's wages 
to keep my family, and I could not well afford to lay 
idle that winter, as I was paying eight dollars a month 
rent. I got a chance to ship for Cuba. This voyage 
would be of little interest to the reader, therefore suflice 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 115 

it to say that we returned to New York by the first of 
April. I remained at home till the first of May, 1877, 
and then made arrangements for a long voyage to China. 
We took on a cargo of general merchandise and 
set sail. We met with a very severe hurricane on this 
trip, and were obliged to lay to for repairs, which took 
about three weeks. We then proceeded on our jour- 
ney and reached Canton in July, we soon disposed of 
our cargo and took on another consigned to San Fran- 
cisco, Cal., where we arrived in September. I found 
letters awaiting me there which told me all were well 
at home. 

To make this little narrative interesting to the 
reader, I will now describe some of the sights that I 
have seen while on the briny deep. First, I will tell 
you about corals and coral reefs. 

The coral with which we are best acquainted has a 
pinkish red color. But coral is also frequently found 
bearing a dozen diff'erent shades of red ; so that it is 
classified technically, among the divers and traders, as 
"blood foam," "flower of blood," "first blood," ^^ second 
blood" and "third blood." There are many different 
opinions respecting the nature of coral ; some maintain- 
ing that it is vegetable, others that it is mineral. But 
it has been demonstrated that they are all wrong, and 
that coral is the direct result of a polyp, (many footed) 
animal, which builds its fairy castles and grottoes by 



116 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

secreting calcareous matter. These singular creatures 
bear no small resemblance to other flower animals, and 
are sometimes mistaken for sea flowers. The tropical 
district of the Pacific Ocean particularly, abound with 
prodigious quantities of coral, which have become verit- 
able palaces of the sea, as gorgeous as ever fairy raised 
in the creative mind of youth. 

Plants of fiber fine as silk-worm thread ; 

Yea beautiful as a mermaid's golden hair, 
Upon the waves bespread. 

Others like the broad banana growing 
Raised their long, wrinkled leaves of purple hue. 

Like streamers wide outflowing. 
When to their father's hall at festival, 

The sea nymphs repair in emulous array 
Their charms display to grace the 

Banquet and the solemn day. 

The growth of coral ceases when the worm which 
creates it is no longer exposed to the washing of the 
tide. Thus a reef rises in the form of a giagantic 
cauliflower, till its top has gained the level of the 
highest tide, above which the polyp has no power to 
carry on its operations. The reef consequently, is no 
higher, but extends itself laterally in all directions, this 
growth being probably as rapid at the upper edge as at 
its lower. The steepness of the face of the rock is pre- 
served, and it is this circumstance which renders this 
species of rock so dangerous to navigation. In the 
first place they are seldom seen above the surface of the 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 117 

water ; and in the next, their sides are so abrupt that a 
ship's bow may strike against them before any change 
y of sounding indicates the approach of danger. It is 
principally in the South sea and the Red sea that the 
coral builders abound. At the approaches of the Maldine 
Islands they form extraordinary masses, and is a very 
pretty sight. Having no further space to give to 
this beautiful coral, I will, therefore, pass on. 

Well, I left off at San Francisco. We disposed of 
our cargo and took on another for Australia, and the 
Sandwich Islands. But before I describe this,voyage, I 
wish to relate an incident that I was eye-witness to in 
China. 

A man was publicly beheaded, — what for I could 
not learn, — but will tell you how it was done. Capital 
punishment in China is different from what it is in our 
country. One fine morning while we lay at Canton we 
noticed a great stir on shore. Several of us thought 
we would go and see what was up. We soon found that 
a man was about to be beheaded. They had a block 
about three feet high and one foot broad. The poor 
fellow was lashed down to this block, so that his neck 
would just reach the top. The executioner had a 
cleaver or sword about two feet long and very sharp. 
A bamboo handle was attached to it, and when all was 
ready, a powerful blow upon the back of the neck sev- 
ered the head from the body. The blood spurted from 
the victim fully ten feet, the body quivered for a moment, 
the muscles contracted and twitched, and all was over. 



118 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

Now to my narrative : We sailed for Australia 
October 15, 1877. After experiencing some very rough 
weather we landed at Honolulu, the capital of the 
Sandwich Islands. After stopping there about three 
weeks we set sail for Queensland, to dispose of the 
balance of our cargo. We then took on a cargo of 
wool in bales, and started for I^ew York, which we 
reached early in May, 1878. We received our pay and 
were discharged. 

I stopped at home until after the 4th of July, when 
I again started for sea ; but this time on a coaster to 
trade in domestic ports. We plied between New York 
and the southern ports of the United States during this 
summer, and when fall came we ^' lay in " for the win- 
ter. Nothing happened during this summer of any 
particular interest, but when I was discharged, I 
thought I would follow my wife to the eastern part of 
Maine, where she had gone on a visit to her father. I 
had to remain in Boston some time before getting my 
pay. While waiting for it I visited an old school-mate 
of mine living in Brooklin. So one Saturday afterneon 
we received our pay but got it too late for the afternoon 
train, and decided to take the midnight train. There 
was a servant girl working at the place where I stopped 
and she having received a complimentary ticket to the 
theater that evening, asked me to accompany her. I 
accepted, thinking I could spend the evening that way 
until train time. But the theater lasted rather late ; I 



Four Years loith the Army of the Potomac. 119 

only escorted her part way home, in order to make my 
train. I bid her good-night at one of the street corners, 
and she started for home, but was soon murdered on 
the way. She was found dead in an alley in about 
thirty minutes after I left her on the street. Of course 
circumstances pointed strongly toward me. I was fol- 
lowed and arrested the next day and taken back to 
Boston and landed in jail. On Tuesday I had a prelim- 
inary trial, and everything was brought to bear to prove 
me guilty. They came very near doing it too, only by 
the help of an unseen power it would have been done. 
It seems that after I had left her she had been seen and 
spoken to by a policeman who was acquainted with her. 
After I arrived at the depot, abouc a mile distant from 
the scene of the murder, I asked the agent the time, as 
I had no watch. The trial was nearly over and I nearly 
convicted of the crime, before the policeman and agent 
came forward in my behalf. They both testified that 
they were strangers to me, and had no direct interest 
in my behalf, the policeman testified to the time of the 
passing of the girl, which coincided with the time of 
the agent upon whom I had called. I was thus exon- 
erated from all blame and turned loose. 

Once more it was a close call for me. Circumstan- 
tial evidence was strong against me. After all there 
were some in and around Boston who seemed to think 
me in some way connected with the murder. Even 
some in my own town looked upon me with suspicion. 



120 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea 



Ilad a little common sense and good judgment been 
used, they could have seen my innocence. In the first 
place I had no motive whatever in killing the girl. In 
the second place, she was killed with a piece of buggy 
shaft, taken from a carriage shop more than a mile 
from where the murder was committed. In the third 
place, the girl was seen and spoken to after I had arrived 
at the Boston and Maine B. R. station. They had several 
arrested on suspicion, but could not fasten the crime on 
anyone. Finally, about two years after this incident, 
one Piper, a sexton in one of the churches of Boston, 
allured little Mabel Young into the belfry of the church, 
there ravished and killed her. He was arrested and 
covicted of the crime and sentenced to be hanged. He 
then confessed that he was the murderer of the Lanne- 
han girl ; this being her name. 

After my trial and acquittal I went back to my 
family and stayed about two weeks, and then returned 
home with them and spent the balance of the winter. 



CHAPTER VI. 

I have not told you any of my boyish pranks. I 
will tell you how my brother William and I wearied 
Windy Brown's bull. 

Dan Rice was responsible for the whole business. 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 121 

Dan had pitched his circus tent in a little village where 
I was wont to romp about in my boyhood days. 
One of the prominent features of the show was a band 
of scouts, who got out on the commons and threw 
lassoes, and shot into the air. This turned the head of 
every boy in town. While the scouts performed I 
stood on the hill and scratched my little sunburnt calf 
with a toe that had no nail ^on it, and longed for the 
freedom of the plains and the excitement of the bufialo 
chase. After the show had left town I casually remarked 
to brother William, that it might be a good thing for 
us to learn the art of throwing the lasso. For there 
was no knowing what might happen to a fellow. 

William agreed that the life of the rollicking scout 
had its attractions, and he yearned for further enlighten- 
ment. " I'll tell you. Bill, how we might get at this," 
says I, as we were seated on the old bob sleds back of 
the barn; " we might begin on Windy Brown's bull." 
^ov7 it happened that Windy's bull had been addicted 
to the pernicious habit of breaking into our cornfield, 
and Bill remembering this fact, agreed with me that it 
would be no more than right to begin on the bull and 
learn him the sense of doing his duty by staying at 
home, and learning us to throw the lasso as well. 
Father, in those days, was the owner of an old mare 
that was sedate, reasonable, and ready at at all times to 
perform anything that she was called upon to do, if it 
lay in her power. It was also a fact that father owned 



1^2 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

the first horse-power hay fork ever used in that town, 
and the old mare used to yank the hay into the barn. 
Well, after due deliberation we decided to take about 
fifty feet of the line that belonged to the hay fork 
equipment, and convert it into a lasso. For a week 
Bill and I could be seen galloping over the farm with 
the old mare, lassoing fence posts, throwing nooses 
over the heads of our younger brothers; we were 
rapidly becoming scouts of the first water. Finally, 
one day, father had to go to mill, and all other condi- 
tions being considered favorable, we decided that the 
time for operations had come, and we would capture 
Windy Brown's bull. 

In the preliminary practice Bill had shown more 
skill than I in throwing the noose, so it was decided 
that Bill was to ride the old mare, and I was to recon- 
noiter in the cornfield and drive the bull down the run- 
way. Bill had mounted the old mare, " now Bill," says 
I, " I guess you had better tie a few slip-knots in that 
rope, so as to bring him down easy, he might jerk you 
into kingdom-come if the old mare was to loose her 
* footen.' " Bill said he had not thought of that, and 
instead of tying the rope to the saddle, he tied it 
around the old mare's neck. After Bill was ready, I 
took the family shot gun, loaded it with dried peas, and 
the two scouts started out on their perilous venture. 

During all this time the bull was tramping green 
corn under foot, not knowing what excitement was soon 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 1^3 

in store for him. The cornfield was on a hill side, at 
the bottom of which was a narrow ravine. I said to 
Bill, " You stay in the gulley and I will go up and shoot 
the bull with the peas and drive him down to you and 
you can lasso him easy." The program was carried out 
to the letter. I stole up through the corn until I got 
within range, and then let the bull have it in the side. 
With a bellow that made the welkin ring for half a 
mile around, the bull started for the ravine, kicking up 
the turf and knocking down the corn. I soon lost 
sight of him, but by what I could hear I knew there 
must be trouble down below. I could'nt see much at 
first but flying cornstalks and dirt. When I got near I 
saw Bill standing there wringing his hands and calling 
me for heaven's sake to hurry up. The bull and the 
old mare were both down, and I could see at a glance 
that the " dickens " was to pay. 

Bill had lassoed the bull all right, but the slip-knots 
didn't work as we expected. The old mare was jerked 
off her feet at the bull's first jump; then the bull got 
mixed up with the old mare and rope, so that when I 
got there they were both stretched out on the ground. 
At first we thought we would cut the bull loose so as to 
save the rope, and not let father find out what we had 
been doing. But it occurred to us, in case the bull was 
set free, he would probably gore the old mare. Finally 
we decided to cut the old mare loose and let the rope 
go. I would be easier to explain the loss of the rope 



12Jf, Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

than the killing of the old mare. When the bull got 
up there were lumps on his side where the peas had hit 
him, as large as walnuts. He went home as fast as he 
could, taking the rope with him, and he never got into 
our cornfield again. 

In a few days father started to put a load of hay 
into the barn. Bill and I had carefully fixed the rope, 
after taking off a piece, as near the way it was as we 
could, and said nothing about it. When father got his 
first fork-full up in the air his rope gave out ; and the 
result was we had to confess the whole thing. Father 
used up what little rope was left on Bill and I, and we 
concluded that scouting life was too swift for us, so we 
grew up as plain, every-day fellows, fishing and hunting 
when the circumstances were favorable, and working 
when we had to. Windy Brown never found out what 
was the matter with his bull. 

Poor brother Bill, he answered to the first call for 
troops from tha State of Maine, and was killed in the 
Peninsular Campaign and his bones left to bleach on 
the plains of old Virginia. 

As I now write, my dear old wife is sitting on the 
opposite side of the room. She jokingly remarked, 
" Are you not going to give me a few pages in your 
book?" As I think she well deserves it, the following 
poem is suggested to my mind, and I think will cover 
the whole ground; for she surely has had her share of 
this world's troubles; being left alone most of the time 
for twenty years, with only her children and lots of care. 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 125 

She can peel and boil potatoes, 
Make a salad of tomatoes, 
But she doesn't know a Latin noun from Greek. 
And so well she cooks a chicken, 
That your appetite would quicken, 
But she can not tell what's modern from antique. 
She knows how to set a table. 
And make order out of babel. 
But she doesn't know Euripides from Kant. 
Once at making pie I caught her— 
Jove ! an expert must have taught her— 
But she doesn't know true eloquence from rant. 
She has a firm conviction. 
One ought only to read fiction, 
And she doesn't care for science, not a bit. 
And the way she makes her bonnets. 
Sure is worth a thousand sonnets, 
But she doesn't yearn for «« culture" not a whit. 
She can make her wraps and dresses. 
Till a fellow fast confesses, 
That there's not another maiden half so sweet. 
She's immersed in home completely. 
Where she keeps all things so neatly, 
But from Browning not a line can she repeat. 
Well, in fact, she's just a woman. 
Gentle, lovable and human, 
And her faults she is willing to admit. 
'Twere foolish to have tarried. 
So' we went off and got married. 
And I tell you I am mighty glad of it. 

It was well along in February, 1878, when I got 
through with my trouble in Boston. I made a short 
visit with friends in the east and settled once more at 



126 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

home in Portsmouth. I thought I would take a little 
needed rest, and get a little better acquainted with my 
family. So I concluded to stay at home the balance of 
the winter. But *' time and tide wait for no man," and 
spring soon came again. One day I receive^ a letter 
from Captain Shurland, with whom I had been to sea 
before. He wanted me to go with him on a voyage. 
He said he didn't know where he would go, but would 
be ready in about two weeks. I sent back word that I 
would be ready to come at a moment's notice. In a 
short time I received word to come to ^N'ew York, as 
the ship would be ready in a few days. Upon arriving 
I learned that the ship was going on a general trading 
voyage to the Indies and would be gone about a year. 
I can not go into details of this voyage, for it would 
take up too much time and space. Suffice it to say that 
our year wore away and we again returned to 'New 
York in the spring. Our voyage was very profitable to 
the owners of the ship. After receiving my pay, the 
spring of 1879 found me at home again. 

As I have but about four more years of which to 
write, I shall speak but little of my life from this time 
on. I will therefore go back a little and tell of some 
things I have seen and heard. I don't suppose there is 
a man living who has not some religious and political 
views. Of course I am not an exception to the rule. 
Those who read this book may want to know my views 
on these important subjects. I will briefly tell you and 
give a few of my reasons why. 



Four Years ivith the Army of the Potomac. 127 

Politically I am an uncompromising Republican. 
My reason is, in the first place, this government is the 
best on God's green earth. I claim the Republican 
party made it what it is. When they took the reins of 
this government in 1861, we were on the verge of the 
most gigantic rebellion that the world ever saw. We 
were without arms, money, credit or a navy. Notwith- 
standing, we crushed out the rebellion, established our 
credit in all the money markets of the world, and got 
most of the national debt paid off before we turned 
over the government to the Democratic party. 

As for my views on religion, I will say that I 
take but little stock in the apostolic doctrines as they 
are taught to-day. I do believe in an Almighty God, 
the Father of all living beings, and the ruler and gover- 
nor of the world. That he made all things for a pur- 
pose, and that all things fill that purpose, for which 
they were made. I believe that the human family is 
punished for all violations of the laws of nature, as fast 
as they are violated, and that the punishment is all that 
we can bear. I think that many things as taught in 
the bible do stand in the light of reason, and are con- 
trary to the laws of nature. I have seen with my own 
eyes and heard with my own ears, things that very 
plainly contradict. I could write page upon page on 
this subject, that would bear me out in this statement; 
but I am willing that every one have his own views on 
this point, and I wish to be accorded mine. Amen. 



1^28 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

As for my views ou the temperance question, will 
say that I am a temperate man, but not a tetotaler. I 
can drink a glass of whiskey or beer or I can let it 
alone, but I don't think the people have a right to legis- 
late what a man shall eat or drink. However, I think 
there should be some restrictions on the liquor traffic. 

After getting home in the spring of 1879, 1 remained 
there a few weeks and then went to sea again on a three 
mast schooner, in our own waters. Was in Mobile 
when I got a dispatch that our little daughter was very 
sick, and for me to come home. I did so and found 
her her very low with dropsy of the brain. On the 2d 
day of September she breathed her last. This was a 
sad affair to all of us, she being our only daughter, and 
was far advanced for her years. She was six years and 
four months old. This was the first time that death 
had entered our family. We laid her away to rest and 
returned to our sad home. The family chain was 
broken and a link was missing, never to be replaced. 

Soon after this sad occurrence I received a letter 
from my sister stating that my mother was very sick, 
but did not say there was any danger. Of course I did 
not feel like leaving my wife in sadness after the death 
of our dear child. I did not go and see my mother 
who lived in Yassalboro, Maine, then, and about the 
23d of September I received word that mother was 
dead. She had died on the 21st and was buried beside 
my stepfather. I was then called to mourn again ; this 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 129 

time for a mother whose place could never be filled in 
this world. 

As I did not feel like going to sea again this winter, 
I got a job on the navy yard as a reamer, in the calkers 
gang. I went to work and remained till spring. We 
got our ship calked and were discharged. 

Congress had passed the arrearage pension act, and 
as I had been suffering all these years with my wounds, 
I thought it no more than right that Uncle Sam should 
give me a pension. I employed a pension agent to 
make application for me. After furnishing the required 
evidence my pe^nsion claim was allowed, at the rate of 
six dollars a month, and dated back sixteen years; and 
amounted to $1151. 80. This was in June, 1881. 

After the death of our little girl I thought I would 
not go to sea again. But after being discharged from 
the navy yard in the spring of 1880, I could get no 
work, so I thought I must go to sea again. It's no task 
to get a chance to ship if you are an able seaman. Ship 
crews are made up of three classes. Able seamen, 
ordinary seamen and landsmen. Able seamen are those 
who understand all parts of a ship; who can steer, 
mend sails, splice ropes and turn their hands to anything 
that is needed to be done on a ship. An ordinary sea- 
man is one who knows only a part of all this duty. A 
landsman is one who never was to sea before. I being 
one of the first class, was not long in getting a job. 
This time on a bark for Liverpool. 



ISJf Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

watched my chance and sold my tin outfit, but at some 
loss. So my hard earnings and pension money is all 
gone, except what little I have in my home and what I 
got for my rig ; I suppose I must go to sea again in 
order to make a living for myself and family. 



As most of my readers are but very little ac- 
quainted with the briny deep, probably a description 
of some of the inhabitants of the sea will interest and 
instruct you more than my humstrum life. It has been 
my purpose and indeed my chief aim, to bring to 
the attention of my readers only those things which are 
best calculated to inspire the loftiest conception of the 
Maker of the universe, and to incite a desire in both 
young and old to become better acquainted with nature; 
and to bring us into a closer relation, a better under- 
standing and an infinite wisdom of nature's God. A 
storm on land is but a lamb compared with the storm 
lion on the sea. Several times in my life I have been 
a witness to the fury of the elements of the sea and air, 
that are sometimes exhibited to the luckless mariner. 

During my second voyage across the Atlantic, on a 
staunch built ship that was able to withstand the fierce 
onsets of wind and wave, in the evening at the close of 
a lovely day, with no thought of impending danger 
until the captain appeared and said " a storm is brew- 
ing, make all things snug, fasten down the hatch ways, 
and everything that is laying around loose put in 



Four Years loith the Army of the Potomac. 1S5 

proper places." In less than half an hour the storm 
struck us broadside ; onward we sped through the in- 
creased fury of the storm ; the man at the helm kept the 
vessel headed on ; the billows would rise before her like 
mountains, nobly would she dive through the liquid 
barrier, then vault up again and toss the water, like a 
monstrous creature shaking the brine from its mane. 

My dear reader, a night like this will make the 
stoutest heart think of God, home and mother. There 
is no use crying for help, for there could be no help 
save from G-od alone. I thought of the thin barrier 
which separated us from eternity; should this break, 
great disaster would follow ; our ship would soon be 
reported overdue, then the papers will tell how some of 
the crew acted the part of cowards through fear. I had 
implicit confidence in the ship and her crew, never 
doubting whether we would weather the gale. All 
things must have an end, so did the storm, but it was 
an experience that I never shall forget. 

But still more dangerous than the storm is a water- 
spout at sea ; though so small is the space that it affects, 
it is seldom that vessels fall within its power. Our 
modern definition of water-spout is a dense cloud highly 
charged with electricity, moving irregularly and with 
amazing rapidity, with inclination to dip. This cloud, 
owing to an apparent tendency to fall while girating 
with extraordinary velocity, inwardly assumes the shape 
of a reverse cone. Its color is a deep gray, its aspect 



132 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

It was now the last of April, 1881 ; a letter had 
come to me from the pension department, telling me 
that my claim was now believed to be complete and 
was before the board of review for final settlement. 
Of course that was good news to me, for I had already 
laid by $1500 and I knew that I should get back pay to 
date of my discharge from the army, and if I was rated 
low it would amount to quite a sum, and by adding this 
to what I already had, I could buy me a little home 
and spend the rest of my days on land ; for I had now 
been away from home nearly twenty years. And when 
I bid them good-bye each time, I did not know but that 
it would be for the last time. For a sailor's life is full 
of danger, and like the soldier, he takes his life in his 
own hands when he goes down to the sea in ships and 
does business on the great deep. 

After my return in the spring of 1881, from the 
island of Jamaica, I remained at home a few weeks, 
and not hearing any more from my pension, I thought 
I would go to sea again. I accepted a chance to ship 
for Europe. We sailed from Boston to Bangor, Me., and 
got a load of lumber for Savanna, Ga. ; we then took 
cotton, resin and turpentine for London. While in 
London I received a letter from my wife stating that 
my pension had been allowed, and wanted me to come 
home at once, but I thought I would get home as soon 
to stay by my ship. I sent word to the pension agent 
that I would return in the fall, and told him to hold 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 13S 

my papers until then. After getting our cargo out in 
London, we went to Liverpool, from there to France 
and back to Liverpool, and there took on a cargo of 
cordage for New York. We landed in Brooklyn navy 
yards all right, and in about three weeks we got our 
pay and were discharged. I started for home and 
reached thereabout the middle of September. After 
remaining at home for a few days, I went to Concord 
and drew my pension. 

I then fully made up my mind that I would quit 
the sea, for a while at least, as it was a duty that I owed 
to my family, and I could now stay at home without 
any hardship to myself or them. After looking 
around awhile, I bought me a house and lot, paying 
$575 for it; I put the rest of my money in bank until 
such time as I would want to use it. After being idle 
for two or three months I found it was telling on me. 
I had not been idle since I was fifteen years old, 
and I could not stand that kind of life. I told my 
wife that I must find something to do; work was not 
very plenty, so I bought a tin peddler's outfit and 
thought I would try tin peddling for awhile. After 
drawing from the bank enough to pay for my horse, 
wagon and stock, I had $960 left. I found that trade 
was not very brisk, and I could only pay expenses with 
my trade. 

In June, 1882, the bank where I had my money 
suspended payment, and I was left in the " soup." I 



130 Sixteen Years on the Dm^k Blue Sea, 

r bid my family farewell, and on the 21st of April 
set sail from Boston, Mass. We reached our destina- 
tion in about four weeks from the time we started. 
We had some head winds to contend with which 
delayed our progress somewhat. We unloaded our 
cargo of wool and spoke timber, and took on a load 
of salt for l^ew York. We arrived in [N'ew York on 
the 2d of September. The captain wanted me to stay 
and go on a voyage with him to the West Indies for 
a winter voyage. But he would not be ready before 
about the first of October. He said he would pay my 
way down home and back if I wished to go home, if 
I would promise to come back when he sent for me. 
It old him I would go with him and then went home. 

On the 9th of September anolslier daughter was 
born to us. After she was about ten days old I kissed 
all good-bye and again left home for the raging sea. 

We left New York on the 3d day of October, 1880, 
bound for the West Indies with a mixed cargo of mer- 
chandise. We reached our port early in December, 
and found the natives getting ready to put in their 
second crop. We landed on the island of Jamaica. 
You are acquainted with the geography of the West 
Indies. I will, therefore, not describe this island, but 
will only say that it is a very fertile island, with an area 
of about 6400 square miles and is populated with whites 
and blacks. Its principal exports are sugar and log- 
wood. We secured a cargo of this and started for home. 



Four Years ivith the Army of the Potomac. ISl 

In February, 1881, while on our way back, and about 
sixty miles south of Cuba, we were struck by a severe 
squall, and lost main top sail and royal yard arm, and 
had our sails considerably damaged. We had to lay up 
at Cuba for repairs. 

The smallpox was raging in Cuba at this time but 
we were ignorant of the fact. In about ten days our 
ship had been repaired and we were ready to sail for 
home. Most of the crew had been on shore before we 
found out that smallpox was there. We felt somewhat 
shaky about it, but as there was no help for it we had 
to do the next best thing, just grin and bear it. After 
we had been a few days out, one of the crew showed 
symptoms of smallpox. Captain Shurland being well 
acquainted with the disease, shut him up in the cabin 
and turned the ship over to the first mate. He stayed 
with the fellow and took care of him. It proved to be 
smallpox sure enough ; but none of the rest of the crew 
happened to take it. When we neared New York 
harbor we hoisted the red flag for the quarantine 
ofilcers. They soon made their appearance, and had us 
landed on quarantine island. After laying there for 
fifteen days and no new cases breaking out we were 
pronounced out of danger. We were thoroughly 
cleansed and disinfected, and then went up to the city. 
I there took my discharge, burned all my old clothes, 
took a good bath, bought a new suit, and started for 
home. I found my wife and babies well and the, little 
one growing like a pig. 



136 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

frightful beyond expression. And no less so is the ele- 
mentary display, which precedes it. The sky becomes 
dreadfully lowering, and unnatural drakness prevails, 
caused by a sickly yellowish sunlight, and the atmos- 
phere is often inpregnated with sulphurious fumes. A 
hurricane, or, more properly, cyclone, sweeps over the 
breaking waves with ominous screeching and dull roar. 
It seems as if a volcano were pouring forth from the 
deep bowels of the earth. While the lightning darts 
and blinding flashes reign supreme, and terrific crashes 
of thunder swiftly follow each other. Then the water 
spout falls nearer and nearer the water which becomes 
violently agitated underneath, until rising into a cone 
of water, and the two are united in a roar so terrible 
as to be fairly deafening. The cyclone on land is the 
water-spout at sea. And woe to the luckless vessel 
that chances to be within its influence; for it would 
almost certainly dismantel and swallow her up, how- 
ever strong she might be. 

The infinite life which pervades the ocean, requires 
an encyclopedia for its description. Hence it will be 
necessary to pass over many interesting things in order 
to give space to the most important. I should liked to 
have mentioned medusa or jelly fish, which are so 
curious and have aflforded me many hours of amusement. 
Also the sea hedge hog, benus girdle, and a score of 
other plant animals as they are called. But I must 
forego my wishes else this work must necessarily be 



Four Years ivith the Army of the Potomac. 137 

stretched out to an uncompromising length ; for no 
one book could contain it all. So I have but a few 
more words about the briny deep, then I am done with 
the sea. Many have asked me how long after a storm 
at sea before it settles down to its usual calmness. 
It takes several days. I have known it to be quite 
rough for ten days after a storm ; but there is always 
more or less bluster on the sea at all times. 

I have not mentioned all the countries that I have 
seen during my travels, nor half the funny things that 
happened. The following is a partial list of the coun- 
tries in which I have been: England, Italy, Spain, 
Japan, China, South America, Sandwich Islands, Ber- 
muda Islands, Solomon Islands, Australia, Palestine, 
South Sea Islands, Isle of Man. There are hundreds 
of other places that I will not mention, as there are 
many ports in each country and some of them I have 
already described. 

After losing my money at bank and selling my tin 
wagon I went to Boston to look for another job to 
go to sea. This was in March, 1883. I walked down 
toward the wharf to see what the prospect was. I saw 
a notice in an office window saying, "men wanted, 
inquire within." They wanted men to go to Indiana 
to put up telephone lines, and they would be ready 
to start the next day, and would give one dollar per day 
and expenses, including Sundays. As I did not wish 



H^ Sixteen Years on the Bark Blue Sea, 

the top of the towers. The great hubs were then 
placed on the shaft and the work of hanging the wheel 
began. Beginning at the bottom the heavy castings 
which form the rims of the two wheels — for there are 
two with the cars hanging between—were hung one by 
one on rods which carry the weight of the wheel. 
Slowly the circle was completed and the last of the 
sections, each of which weighs ^ve tons, was raised 
two hundred and seventy feet to drop into its place. 
The false work around the wheel to put it together 
contained ?12,000 worth of lumber. 

When the last section was hung and the thirty-six 
cars were placed between the rims of the two wheels, 
it was ready to turn, and it did turn, as easily, as 
steadly, and under as complete control as the wheel 
of a sewing machine. That was the great test. That 
was where the doubting Thomases had to open their 
eyes and surrender to the young bridge-builder who 
always said it would turn, while they said never. Here 
was a bridge built in a circle and hung to an axle by 
thousands of steel rods until it looked like a mammoth 
bicycle wheel, and weighed 1,300 tons, or 2,600,000 
pounds. And it turned the first time that Mr. Ferris 
gave the signal to the engineer, and it has been turning 
forward or backward, stopping at the right place to an 
inch, and in fact, obeying that engineer ever since as 
only the most perfect mechanism can obey. The 
engineers who doubted have surrendered, and the new 
principle has been established. Mr. Ferris has demon- 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. US 

strated that a great tension wheel can be hung together 
from an axle by rods and still keep its perfect circle. 
The engineers said it wonld become ellipitcal when they 
tried to make it turn. The weight is all a hanging 
weight, and there are no stiff spokes. Each rod when 
it becomes vertical above the axle is free from all weight, 
the distribution beginning each side of it on the rim 
and the weight centering at the bottom of the wheel. 
Other wheels have been built on a small scale, but they 
were on the old plan, a stiff wheel with spokes bearing 
up the weight above as well as that suspended below. 
This is the first attempt to build a tension or hanging 
wheel of large proportions. 

The highest point of the wheel is two hundred and 
sixty-five feet above the surface of the earth. The 
diameter is two hundred and fifty feet, and the circum- 
ference eight hundred and twenty-five, the entire thing 
being raised fifteen feet above the ground. 

There are thirty-six cars on the wheel, each capable 
of comfortably seating forty people. The cars are 
twenty-seven feet long, thirteen feet wide, and nine feet 
high, and each weighs thirteen tons. The motive power 
comes from a 1,000-horse power engine under the wheel. 
Some spectators and visitors have asked what 
would be the effect if one-half the cars were loaded all 
on one side of the wheel. At this question the young 
engineer smiles. Man is a very important bit of flesh 
and blood and he watches the fly on the wheel without 
thinking that it can add any weight. Mr. Ferris regards 



llfi Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

early Colonial muster rolls are sprinkled with the 
names of Eaton in large numbers; they answered 
for duty in the war for independence. Several sons of 
Eaton suffered cruel imprisonment by the British in the 
early years of this country, and later helped with a will 
to fight for sailors' rights. Finally, from every loyal 
State in 1861, unnumbered Eatons joined the Union 
host, many of whom marched through victory to a free 
and nobler union. Much more might be written in 
praise of our name, but I dare not take more time for 
this work, when only the leasure moments of a busy life 
are available. 

Now to return to the World's Fair. The greatest 
novelty of the exposition was the Ferris wheel. I should 
have thought that I had missed the best part of the 
Fair if I had not taken a ride on this big wheel. Here 
is a short sketch of this monster and the difiiculty of 
the inventor in getting permission to put this wheel on 
the ground. 

When Mr. Ferris submitted his plan there was long 
deliberation by the Fair managers, but his concession 
was granted July 1, 1892, only to be recalled and 
regranted December 16, just four and one-half months 
before the Fair was to open. Mr. Ferris had met all 
sorts of discouragements, but firmly believed in the 
feasibility of his plan. 

December 28 every pound of the steel in the Ferris 
wheel was pig iron. June 21, less than six month later, 
it was spun out into the most monstrous spider web 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. HI 

ever conceived and was revolving without hitch with 
hundreds of passengers riding on its rim as unconscious 
of the sensation of fear as one of the flies that light on 
the big fly- wheels of the engines that furnish the motive 
power for the Fair. 

The different parts of the wheel were made by nine 
of the largest steel plants in the country, and when 
they reached Chicago they went together as perfectly 
as if made by one hand. 

Work on the base was begun January 3; the foun- 
dations were laid thirty-five feet below the surface and 
the excavation had to be through twenty feet of quick- 
sand and water. Three steam pumps were kept at work, 
and with the mercury ten degrees below^ zero live steam 
was used on the concrete to prevent its freezing before 
it could be put in place with the massive steel bars which 
built up the eight foundation towers. These towers 
under the ground are twenty feet square and thirty-five 
feet deep. To these concrete towers are firmly bolted 
the steel towers which rise one hundred and forty feet 
in the air to support the axle of the Ferris wheel, and 
the steel towers cannot be toppled without pulling up 
the concrete foundations. 

The axle on which the wheel revolves is the largest 
shaft ever forged. It is forty-five feet long, thirty-two 
inches in diameter, weighs fifty-six tons and was forged 
by two men and a boy at the Bethlehem Iron Works in 
Pennsylvania. This gigantic shaft had to be raised 
one hundred and forty feet and placed in its sockets on 



1S8 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

to go to sea any more I accepted the job and signed 
the contract. On the next day started for Anderson, 
Ind., which place we reached on the 7th day of March, 
1883. 

Afer working for about fifteen months in difl'erent 
parts of the State, I sent for my family and settled in 
Dunkirk, Ind. In a few weeks I got through with my 
job on the line and went home. After this I worked 
at whatever I could find to do, such as cutting wood, 
husking corn, or digging ditches. But owing to my not 
being acquainted with work on land, I found it a hard 
matter to keep my family from want. I spent all my 
hard earnings long before I had become accustomed to 
work on shore. 

In 1884 I moved to the Franklin switch, near Red 
Key, Ind. Here I made friends and soon found all the 
work I could do. In the spring of 1885 I moved to 
Red Key, and worked at what I could find to do, and 
with my pension was able to make a living, having ^t 
my pension increased to sixteen dollars per month. 
After renting for a while, I bought a house and lot, on 
easy payments, and got it all paid out in due time. On 
the 24th of January, 1889, 1 had the misfortune of hav- 
ing my house and all its contents consumed by fire, with 
no insurance whatever. Nothing daunted me, and I 
w^ent to work on another house before the ashes were 
cold, and on the 19th of March I moved into my new 
house on the same lot. The people of Red Key were 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 1S9 

very kind and helped me all they could ; also the G. A. 
E. post of Eed Key and Ridgeville lent a helping hand. 
I worked at what I could find to do until 1890, when I 
borrowed one hundred dollars from the bank of Red 
Key and bought me a horse and dray, and went into the 
draying business for a livelihood. 

I have taken a lay-off each year to attend the 
l^ational Encampment, also the department encamp- 
ment ; I having been commander of Post 213, Depart- 
ment of Indiana, which made me eligible to a seat in 
that body. I was taken with the typhoid fever in 
November, 1891. I was very sick for five weeks. After 
recovering thoroughly, I went to work again with my 
dray, and am still in that business at this date, October 
29, 1893. On the 23d day of April, 1890, I got my 
pension increased to twenty-five dollars per month, for 
total deafness in one ear and partial deafness in the other. 
On the 14th day of October, 1893, I started for 
Chicago to see the World's Fair, and will, for the 
benefit of those who did not have the good fortune to 
attend, give a brief description of what I saw. Of 
course in my vast experiences there were many things 
that I had already seen, and it was not so grand a sight 
to me as it was to many others. But I will speak of 
what I saw further on, as I have some other things 
of which I wish to write 'ere I finish my little book. 
A line or two to emphasize the name of Eaton, 
which will no doubt give satisfaction to every Eaton 
in whose heart burns the torch of patriotism. The 



m Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea^ 

all the men and women who ride on the Ferris wheel 
like so many flies. Its weight is so great of itself that 
the weight of all the passengers who can crowd into 
the cars — and 2,160 people can at one time — is of no 
more importance than the weight of so many flies on 
the fly-wheel of the engine below. The wheel has 
1,300 tons revolving and 2,150 men crowded into the 
cars, each weighing one hundred and fifty pounds, 
could not add more than one hundred and fifty tons, 
or only about one-tenth of the weight of the wheel 
that carries it. There is, therefore, no danger from 
careless loading. 

The Ferris wheel is as attractive by night as by 
day, and more so when viewed from a distance. Its 
great rim is studded with 1,400 incandescent electric 
lights which revolve with it. The grounds and build- 
ings surrounding the wheel are also illuminated by 
1,100 additional lamps, and the display now rivals the 
illumination in the Court of Honor. 

The cost of constructing the Ferris wheel was esti- 
mated at $300,000, and the contract of Mr. Ferris and 
his partners with the Exposition managers provided 
that after this sum had been taken, Mr. Ferris was to 
pay half of his receipts to the Fair. The actual cost 
of the wheel was $327,000, and that sum had been taken 
in by September 15. The daily receipts at the wheel 
were between |4,000 and $5,000 in August, and greater 
since. The Exposition and the Ferris company will 
realize from $50,000 to $100,000 on the gigantic wheel. 



Four Years ivith the Army of the Potomac. I45 

A person can hear all kinds of qu,estions. " What 
sort of ore is that?" asked a man in the Colorada State 
building. " That's gold," replied the attendant. " Dug 
out of the mine like that ? " " Certainly, all the speci- 
mens you see before you are free gold." *^ Well then, 
just wait a moment till I open this satchel, I want one 
of those chunks to take home." 

"What fish is that ?" asked a G. A. R. man with 
long hair, as he thrust his finger against the glass front 
of the tank in the Fisheries Building. " That's a G. A. 
R. pike," replied the guard. '' Well," replied the visi- 
tor, " I see he has lost an eye, can you tell me what 
pension he is drawing ? " 

" Have you a hop exhibit? " asked a beefy brewer 
of Milwaukee, of an attendant in the Australian booth 
in Agricultural Hall. " J^one that we are proud of," 
replied the attendant ; " the best we have is that one 
over there." And the thin white finger of the young 
man was turned upon a stufled kangaroo. 

'' Isn't there a good deal of water in this wine ?" 
asked a visitor, who had just drawn his beak from a 
glass of red juice in the California building. "Possi- 
bly," replied the attendant, " you see it was made during 
the rainy season." 

Many of the questions asked the guards would 
make a horse laugh. I have no doubt the guards had 
lots of fun telling one another about the "gags" they 
got ofl' on the " Jays " while at the Fair. 



H6 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

THE COLUMBIA LIBERTY BELL. 

It rang out for the first time on California day. 
This bell was placed on the piazza west of the Adminis- 
tration Building. On G. A. R. day, September 9th, it 
was rung again. This bell is to be rung on all great 
liberty anniversaries in this and other countries. It was 
cast in Troy, N. Y., during the early days of the Kevo- 
lution. It was intended to have a fac-simile of the bell 
produced by having Mrs. President Cleveland press a 
button, which would release a mass of moulten metal, 
and allow it to pour into the mould. A severe storm 
prevented this, and the button was pressed by a daughter 
of the American Revolution. The first cast was per- 
fect, and after considerable polishing and engraving the 
bell was completed. Pieces of relics of American and 
foreign struggles for liberty enter largely into its com- 
position. These relics were cheerfully forwarded by 
their owners from all over the world. Among the 
relics were sabers, musket barrels, bayonets, cannon 
balls and bullets, and many thimbles that were used in 
sewing for the soldiers of the American rebellion ; gold 
and silver from the mines in every State and Territory, 
and over twenty-five thousand pennies from the school 
children. The bell is seven feet high, seven feet four 
inches in diameter at the mouth, and weighs thirteen 
thousand pounds. The tongue and bolts weigh seven 
hundred pounds, and are largely made from swords and 
cannon balls of the late war. When hung, the entire 
bell will measure eleven feet. The inscriptions are 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. I4.7 

interesting, especially around the rim. This inscription 
proclaims liberty throughout the land to all the inhabi- 
tants thereof. Trom the old liberty bell around the top 
are these words. " Glory to God in the highest and peace 
on earth, good will to men." On the Philadelphia Cen- 
tennial bell on one side is this, "A new commandment 
I give unto you, that ye love one another." 

I will now give the official number of visitors of 
the Fair up to October 9, 1893. 

When the Columbian Exposition opened, it was 
estimated that the admissions would be from 12,- 
000,000 to 20,000,000, and some enthusiasts placed the 
number as high as 25,000,000. In the first five months, 
or up to October 1, the total paid admissions was 14,- 
600,000, The week ending August 26, was the first 
in which the number of admissions exceeded a million, 
and it was then predicted that in the remaining two 
months there would be an average attendance of a 
million a week. Besides the paid admissions there are 
from 80,000 to 40,000 free admissions daily, consisting 
of attendants, waiters, guards, officials, members of the 
press, etc. The attendance has been much greater than 
at the Centennial at Philadelphia, in 1876. It falls con- 
siderably below the attendance at Paris in 1889, how- 
ever, but it must be remembered that the nominal admis- 
sion fee at Paris, was but one franc, (twenty cents,) and 
that the actual price, owing to discount, was only about 
ten cents. Following are the paid admissions at Chicago 
on the days named: 



U8 



Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 



Opening day 128,965 

Decoration day 115,578 

Infanta day 135,281 

German day 165,069 

Fourth of July 283,273 

Swedish day 129,873 

Bohemian day 151,971 

British day 168,861 

Illinois day 243,951 

New York day 160,382 

Wisconsin day 175,409 

Penna. and Brazil day 203,460 

California, G. A.R., Utah, 
stationary engineers and 

transportation day 231,522 

Kansas and French engi- 
neers' day 160,128 

Ohio day 196,700 

Texas, railway and New 

Mexico day 202,376 

Fishermen's, Iowa and 

sportsmen's day 199,174 



Knights of Honor day 215,643 

I. O. O. F. day 195,210 

Indiana day 196,423 

Irish day 107,853 

Total for May 1,050,037 

Total for June 2,675,113 

Total for July 2,760,263 

Total for August 3,515,493 

Total for September 4,658,901 

Total to October 1 14,659,808 

October 1 47,928 

October 2 128,196 

October 3 145,133 

October 4 174,755 

October 5 180,454 

October 6 142,826 

October 7 222,196 

October 8, Sunday 88,045 

October 9, (Chicgo day). ..700, 000 
Greatest day in Paris, 1889, 397,150 
Greatest day in Philadel- 
phia, 1876 217,526 



The crowd at the Fair on Chicago day, October 9, 
was the largest ever gathered inside an enclosure. In 
round figures 700,000 people were there, and every 
means of conveyance was required to carry them to and 
from the grounds. Over 30,000 people rode on the 
Ferris wheel, and one young woman distinguished her- 
self by making the circuit on top of a car, waving the 
stars and stripes. There was a grand parade, and in 
the evening the most gorgeous display of fireworks 
ever witnessed, given in various parts of the grounds 
and on the water front. The programme was carried 
out without a hitch. Next to the day of the great fire, 
of which this day was the twenty-second anniversary, 
October 9, 1893, will live uppermost in Chicago's his- 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 14,9 

tory. One event which made the day specially memor- 
able was the payment of the last dollar of the debt of 
the Fair. To do all this, Treasurer, Seeberger drew a 
check for $1,565,310, one of the largest ever made in 
Chicago. 



It was my intention to write up the battle of Getty- 
burg, the decisive battle of the war of the great rebell- 
ion, but to do the matter justice it would take more 
space than I have, in a little book like this. I will, 
however, give a brief description of the battlefield, 
which covers an area of twenty-five square miles, not 
including the cavalry battlefield, but simply the battle- 
field proper. According to the estimate of Gen. Hunt, 
chief of artillery, there was expended five hundred and 
sixty-nine tons of deadly missiles, including all the 
various kinds of shells and balls known to this country 
and to Europe. There lay dead at one time on the 
battlefield 10,000 soldiers and one lady, (Mrs. Jennie 
Wade,) with 5,000 dead horses and mules. While 
thousands more lay mangled and wounded, strewn all 
over the bloody field, groaning and moaning and dying 
every minute. Of generals killed there were Reynolds, 
Weed and Zoak. Those wounded, Hancock, Sickles, 
Doubleday, Barlow, Barnes, Gibbon, Warren and Gra- 
ham. Officers below the rank of general, and enlisted 
men, numbered in killed, 3,072; wounded, 14,497 ; cap- 
tured or missing, 5,443 ; total loss 23,003. On the con- 
federate side, there were killed or mortally wounded, 



150 Sixteen Years on the Dark Blue Sea, 

Gens. Armistead, Barksdale, Garnet, Pender, Pettegrew 
and Semmes. The union army captured 13,621. The 
wounded and missing is estimated to be not less than 
28,000, making a total loss to Lee's army of 41,621. 
The union army also captured three cannon, 28,178 
small arms, and forty-one standards, and 24,978 small 
arms were gathered on the battlefield. 

Such were some of the scenes of that great conflict. 
The most stubborn and hard fought battle ever fought 
in this or any other country. It was my good fortune 
and pleasure to visit this battlefield in September, 1892. 
I there passed over the scenes of nearly thirty years 
ago. When I call to mind the part I had taken in that 
great battle, I feel thankful to a kind Providence, that 
I am still in the land of the living. I also visited many 
of the battlefields of old Virginia and the National 
Cemetery at Arlington Heights, where many of my 
comrades in arms are now sleeping, whose bones were 
gathered from the battlefields of Bull Kun and the 
route to the Rappahannock. May they rest in peace 
is the humble prayer of the writer. 

Dear reader my little book is nearly done, and I 
sincerely hope that it has interested, instructed and 
amused you. And to all who have bought my little 
book, whether bought through curiosity or for charity, 
or any other motive, please accept my heartfelt thanks 
and bear in mind this was written by a wayfaring man, 
whose education is very limited. So I will close with 
these few rhymes of my own. 



Four Years with the Army of the Potomac. 151 

THE OLD G. A. R. BOYS. 

You may talk about the Masons, 

The Odd Fellows and such, 
And say they're so fraternal, 

As to fairly beat the Dutch ; 
You may praise them if you choose. 

With their mysteries and their noise, 
But they cannot hold a candle 

To the old Grand Army boys. 



For a man that's got the money, 

Can learn about their craft ; 
Can get degrees and pass words 

That would make a funeral laugh. 
They may be loaded down with symbols, 

But for true faternal joys, 
They cannot hold a candle 

To the old Grand Army boys. 



You may talk about your badges, 

But the one that has the call. 
Is the stars, and flag and eagle. 

It's far alDOve them all. 
It was won where cannons thundered. 

Amidst battle crash and noise ; 
So there's nothing holds a candle 

To the old Grand Army boys. 



Why ! we fought and bled together. 

And shared the prison pen ; 
We faced the front in battle. 

With the elbow touch of men; 
And the comfort was cemented 

Amidst the battle crush and noise ; 
So there's nothing holds a candle 

To the old Grand Army boys. 



Are they freternal? Well I reckon, 

And their charity is all right. 
Are they loyal ? Yes, they proved it. 

For they left their homes to fight. 
And the nation owes them homage 

For the peace it now enjoys; 
For there's nothing holds a candle 

To the old Grand Army boys. 



152 lears on the Dark Blue Sea. 

My little book is now completed. I have read the 
manuscript over and reviewed my past life. I see many 
chances for improvement, both in my life and book. 
But time's wheels never move backward and I cannot 
improve my past life if I would. I have spent too much 
time on my book to turn back for improvement. Still 
I look with some degree of satisfaction to myself and 
don't think I^would make very many changes if I could, 
either in my life or book. 'Tis true my life has been 
full of ups and downs. I have seen the time when my 
check would be honored for ?3,000. But again I have 
seen the time when one cent would cover my pile. 
Being born on the snow-clad hills of New England, 
was bred in poverty ; want sat by my cradle. I know 
what it is to ask my mother for bread when she had 
none to give. I know what it is to be foot-sore and 
hungry but, thank God, not discouraged, and every 
impulse of my nature, every conviction of my soul, is 
with the poor classes of the country. I am a poor man 
and expect to go down to my grave as such. 

I have been as liberal with the poor as my means 
would allow, and if God deals with me as liberally and 
with as much charity as I have with my fellow men, I 
shall be satisfied when I am called upon to pass in my 
checks. 



^5-^^THE END- 



